It Started In The Sand
by Nexlei
Summary: Crazy friends, maniacal teachers... what else is new? SoraKairi
1. English Class

Me: Hi all

Riku: why…. Why… oh dear god why is she back

Me: to make you say the disclaimer of course

Riku: Nexlei does not own Kingdom Hearts or any other random references

Me: Thanks Riku, anyway this is going to be a SoraKairi story, I'm not sure of any other couples yet. This fic will be centered on the basic life of a sixteen year old, so it is kinda a high school fic. Enjoy.

Chapter One

English Class

It was always the same. Every single time, year after year, day after day, minute after minute. It was the best class, or it was the worst class, or in some cases it was the nap class. But whatever it is to each individual one thing is for sure… it is mandatory.

In order to get the hallowed high school diploma the district required four years of Language Arts. More commonly know as English class.

Kairi had never put much thought into English class, it was just another required class for her, she was bright, and writing, reading, and all of the other things in the class had always came easy to her. Kairi wasn't interested in her honors English at all, not when she had her heart so set on being a doctor, AKA science related career.

Although she knew she had very little interest in being there, English was exactly where she found herself on a Monday afternoon.

The air was chilly, as was the atmosphere of the building, not in a horror story, something bad will happen chilly, but in a dreaded first day of school kind of way. It was the day that kids all over the globe try to push as far from their minds as possible (during the summer). It had arrived with a vengeance, and everyone found themselves in sixth period English.

With long faces, and tired expressions all of the students slowly filed into the classroom. After a long first day of examining how everyone had changed over the summer with close eyes, it was obvious that everyone would rather go home than be sitting in this classroom… in fact some of them would rather sit in a room filled with sixty year old women doing jazzercise than be in there. But that didn't matter. They were stuck in another class for another forty minutes of note taking on classroom rules and required materials.

Kairi was sitting in the middle row about halfway back. She didn't want to give the impression that she was utterly uninterested by sitting in the back, but than again, she knew it would be a hellish experience if she sat to close to the front.

"Hey," she heard a familiar voice. Looking up, she saw a two big round blue eyes staring strait at her. Sora.

Sora was Kairi's long time friend; they had met in a sandbox at the age of two and had hit it right off. Although contrary to the friend's forever stereotype, Kairi and Sora had many differences. They didn't have the finish each other's sentences complex, and had completely different interests. But one thing that was defiantly the same between them was there deep care for each other. They had been there for each other through thick and thin ever since that first day in the sandbox. They had always enjoyed each other's company.

No, they weren't a couple. It was always everyone's favorite question, 'are you and Kairi going out yet' people would constantly bombard Sora and sometimes Kairi too, of course the question would be rephrased but they meant the same thing. The answer had always been the same. No, they weren't dating, and that they didn't have plans to do so in the future.

"Hi," Kairi said to her friend of fourteen years. She had recently turned sixteen and was officially able to drive… only problem was she had no car.

"Is it just me, or is that clock actually going slower than it was a few minutes ago," Sora asked nudging his head in the direction of the ancient school clock.

"Sora, English is your favorite subject," Kairi reminded him, knowing full well that he must want to be there way more than she does.

"Do you really think that we will be doing anything even remotely related to English today?" Sora said, "If I have to look over one more syllabus or sign one more paper, I think I will go mad,"

"True," Kairi laughed. Sora had taken the seat behind her.

"Sora you better not kick my seat all year," Kairi said remembering a certain experience in her grade nine math class.

"Of course not Kairi," Sora said with an evil look in his eyes and a sarcasm filled smile. Kairi laughed she knew that was Sora code for, I shall be kicking your seat until the end of time.

It was than that the teacher walked in. She was wearing a bright yellow flower print sundress and a pair of clinky high heels. A little too gaudy for Kairi's taste, but that's the English teacher stereotype for you. It was obvious that she wasn't a day over thirty, but she wasn't too young either.

"Good afternoon class, I'm Ms. Yuffie, and we're going to have a great year," The teacher, Ms. Yuffie announced to the class in a voice that seemed way to enthusiastic to the class of summer longing eleventh graders.

Ms. Yuffie proceeded to hand out the syllabuses and all of the other forms that came with each class. It didn't take a genius to notice that Ms. Yuffie wasn't like other teachers. She was more like an educated seven year old on sixty cups of coffee. The class's reaction varied from student to student. Some were forced awake by her hyper ness, some were getting a headache from it, and some were too hung over to notice, but lets not get into that story.

"Ok Class I'll see you sixth period tomorrow, remember your notebooks," Ms. Yuffie finished up a few minutes before the bell rung.

"Finally," Kairi mumbled under her breath, she was in the category of those who were getting a headache from there teachers constant enthusiasm, a little enthusiasm was ok, but this was English class not a pep rally.

"This year is going to rock," Sora said, Kairi spun on her heels, and shook her head at Sora. Apparently he was in the category of being awoken by the hyper ness.

"She's ok," Kairi said. She didn't know much about the teacher yet and it would be unfair to judge her based on one day anyway.

Immediately after Kairi said that the bell rung. Although it is most defiantly unfair to call that computer generated screech like noise a bell. But screech like noise or not, it signaled the end of the day.

"So I'm giving you a ride," Sora said as they walked out of the classroom.

"Hey no need to rub in my car lacking status," Kairi commented.

"So… you want to walk than," Sora asked using his sarcastic tone. Kairi just stared blankly at him.

"SORA," A shout rang from behind them. The voice was undoubtedly Roxas's. Roxas was a friend of Sora and Kairi's. Well Roxas was a friend to almost everyone in the school, not in a popular stuck up way, but in a friendly way. Most people at the school considered him to be an all around nice guy. Although most people at the school didn't know about him and his best friend Axel's fetish for burning thing… lots of things.

"Hi Roxas, where's Axel," Sora asked, it was rare to see the two more than ten feet apart. They weren't a couple, in all seriousness, they are both completely heterosexual males, but they were the kind best friends that would more than likely jump in front of a moving car for one another.

"He had to go to his locker for something, by the way, thanks for saying hi in English," Roxas said.

"You were there we didn't see you," Kairi said, "maybe we were too distracted by …" She was cut off.

"Each other's loving stare, I know no need to say it," Roxas joked about them like everyone else in the school.

"No, by Ms. Yuffie's hyperactive speech," Kairi finished, glaring daggers at Roxas.

"Hahaha you guys know I'm joking," Roxas said, "anyway its me you guys, Axel and Selphie in that class," Roxas said.

"Cool," Sora said, "but you and Axel better not try to blow anything up in English class, I'd like to keep my eyebrows thank you," They exited the school through two heavy doors and walked out into the sweet sunlight… it was great to be not in school.

"I'd be more worried about third degree burns if I were you," Kairi pointed out from the left of Sora. They had reached the parking lot.

"Well I'm waiting here for Axel, see you lovey dovy peoples later," Roxas said, running off before Sora or Kairi could retort to being called Lovey dovey peoples… that's not even grammatically correct.

Sora unlocked his navy blue Neon, and Kairi climbed into the passenger seat, shoving her bag next to her feet. Sora obviously sat in the driver's side and started the car.

He pulled out of the overcrowded (well that's an understatement) student parking lot and drove down the streets that led to Kairi's house.

Sora and Kairi only lived about two streets away from each other, and they could easily walk to each other's houses in under ten minutes.

"Summer went by unusually fast this year," Sora mumbled, as he turned onto Kairi's road. They hadn't been in the car for long. Kairi didn't live too far from the school, but just far enough for it to be an inconvience to walk, so she would either get a ride or take the bus, seeing as how the latter was as close to Chinese water torture that you could get, she chose to get a ride. Besides, it was fun spending time with Sora.

"Yeah spending most of our time at the beach will do that," Kairi said, knowing the truly amazing powers that the beach had. There is nothing in the world like spending time with your feet in the waves. It really passes time by fast.

Sora pulled into Kairi's driveway and Kairi reached down to grab her backpack, which was luckily filled with only a pen and a notebook. No heavy text books yet. She lifted her bag, unaware that it had somehow become unzipped on the ride home. Her pen fell into the space in-between hers and Sora's seat.

Smiling a little at her ability to drop things from her backpack like that, she reached down to grab her pen. She didn't know that Sora had reached down to get it for her at the same time.

Her hang got to the pen first, but a millisecond later she felt Sora's land on to p of hers. It was than that something happened that she never expected in all of the years of friendship with Sora. She felt a shock of some sort ripple through her, her face grew extremely hot, and every bit of her attention was on the fact that Sora's hand had for a moment landed on hers.

But the moment ended and Sora's hand moved off of hers allowing her to take the pen and shove it somewhat clumsily into her bag.

"See you tomorrow," She barley was able to choke out as she climbed out of his car and turned towards her house.

Why was she being like this? It was only Sora, good old childhood sandbox friend Sora… good old childhood sandbox friend Sora who happened to have the most amazingly blue eyes and the gentlest touch she had ever felt. His hand on hers had felt so… right…

She could still feel the heat of a blush on her face as she shakily opened the door to her house. Maybe she had imagined it… maybe she was dehydrated and delusional…

But as someone said… denying it is the first step… this would be an interesting year.

A/n well this is my first try high school fic. I hope you all liked it. Ummm as for Sora's car, it was the first car that came to mind… I don't know why, I've never even had a neon, I don't even know anyone who does, well no one that I can think of now anyway.

I hope that you all found this entertaining, the next chapter will be up soon. Please Review.


	2. The Echo

Me: hello all and welcome to chapter two

Riku: Nexlei does not own Kingdom Hearts or any other random references

Me: I had to bribe him to say that by giving him a big part in the chapter

Riku: the readers will rejoice, everyone loves me

Me: (cough) not they don't (cough again)

Riku: hello to all of my adoring fans please review

Me: on with the chapter

Chapter Two

The Echo

No matter how softly he closed the door it always echoed. High ceilings just did that, almost as a cold reminder of just how empty the house really was. It was, of course an issue that couldn't be avoided when your parents worked full time jobs.

They loved their work more than most. He wasn't sure exactly how much that they cherished there jobs, or even if the importance of work out weighted the importance of him, but he didn't often focus on the lonely feeling of his home. Doing so would not make it any less empty.

As always the echoing sounded through the house as he closed the door. But he did not notice it; he did not notice anything about his large house. Not that there was anything particularly out of the ordinary to notice, the reason that he noticed nothing was he was far too lost on his silly teenage thoughts. Something that was not typical of Sora.

Sora was not particularly a daydreamer. Although he had his moments of utter space out, like everyone else in the world, he was nothing compared to the giddy schoolgirls who would spend all of math class imagining there wedding to the 'handsomest guy in school' Riku. But as Sora dropped his school bag in the corner of the room, and walked to the couch (almost stumbling over the coffee table) he was utterly lost in contemplation, thought, memory, and that not so hallow space between his ears.

It was hard not to think about it. The soft feeling of her hand beneath his, the way that her eyes had shot up, almost unknowingly to meet his, and the way she had smiled nervously.

But he knew that he shouldn't be thinking these things. No, not him, not about her, not about Kairi. His dearest, closest friend Kairi, the one that he spent most of his life with, and the one who was always there to hear his complaints about homework, and how unfair it was that so and so in Harry Potter died. He couldn't help it, his hand tingled lightly where it had landed on hers and images of her laughing face flashed in his head.

But enough was enough. He wasn't going to sit by and think of Kairi like that. He would get his mind off this little daydream that seemed to be forming in his head. For goodness sake, it was only a touch of hands. Sora stood up, leaving, or trying to leave his pensive self behind. He was going to do what any teenage boy would do to get their mind off frustrations such as this.

No, not watch porn, he was going to do his homework. Sora always did his homework… at some point… usually any time before ten o'clock at night seemed out of the question. Desperate times call for desperate measures. So Sora was off to do homework at a completely unheard of time.

He grabbed his bag before running quickly up the stairs. The echo of his feet hitting the wood not fazing him. No one else was around to complain about the noise anyway.

Today's assignments had been mostly easy things. Filling out information forms, and emergency information for the school. He supposed that he would fill it out and than just have his parents sign it. It would be easy, and would fallow the plan to get Kairi out of his head.

The first question was simple, Name. He filled it in, using his new black pen. He had bought it at one of those school time sales. Although the prices at these sales were unbeatable, it was common knowledge that all school children hated the sales with a burning passion. All around them, on TV, in malls, or in the stores themselves there would be ridiculous bright colored signs with school children studying on them. Any child old enough to understand symbolism would see these signs, not as advertisements, but as a statement reminding them of the coming evil that was the school year.

Sora moved on to the next questions, age, easy enough, sixteen he wrote in. Then something only slightly unexpected happened. He thought about Kairi's sixteenth birthday party. Not necessarily good when your trying to avoid thinking about your best friend.

It had been in the spring last year. She had refused to call it a "sweet sixteen" she declared that the term had been forever ruined by some reality TV show where parents bought there spoiled kids lots of candy for there birthday party or something of that sort. Sora avoided reality TV for a reason.

Anyway her sixteenth birthday party had been small. Nothing like the wild parties that were an apparent trademark of the younger generation. Just friends sitting around Kairi's living room drinking more than there body weight in soda. And Kairi had sat next to him on her fluffy couch. What a nice feeling that was.

'No more thoughts about Kairi', Sora thought to himself. He concentrated all of his attention back on the paper at hand.

Do you have any jobs? was the next question. Sora wrote in his job, he was a waiter at a local pizza place. Free Pizza. Enough said. Kairi worked at a chocolate store, she always smelled like chocolate. Sora was one of the few boys alive who appreciated chocolate as much as girls do. What was there not to love? Chocolate is delicious. Kairi would always buy him chocolate with her employee discount. Sora smiled in remembrance of his friend presenting him with a bag of chocolates after a long day of finals at the end of last year.

Ok that was enough. It was obvious that Sora's not so devious plan to escape having… for lack of a better word, sweet thoughts of Kairi was not working. He put his pen down and stood up out of this chair. His hands flew over his head in a stretch with ought him having time to comprehend it. And he walked over and plopped down on his bed with out a sound. The one thing in the house that didn't echo.

Sora stared at the plain white ceiling, vaguely wondering if he should paint it some other color, to brighten up his room. But seconds later his thoughts returned to his dear friend. He couldn't stop thinking about Kairi.

She has such pretty eyes, and such a sweet smile, he thought, a goofy grin spreading across his face.

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Riku. Riku, the one boy that could make almost any girl swoon at his feet. He couldn't see what was so 'handsome' about Riku, after all, Sora wasn't one to judge guys, and he didn't plan on doing so… ever (girls were just too pretty). Sora had been friends with Riku almost as long as he had been friends with Kairi.

It had been a fateful day in Kindergarten; When Riku had walked up to Sora and Kairi and asked them if they would share there play doe with him. Although he didn't do so with out sending a wink in Kairi's direction. Sora could still remember giving Riku the iciest stare that a five and a half year old could muster. He didn't want Kairi to fall all over Riku, just like the rest of their class had. She just wouldn't be as much fun to hang around, if all she did was talk about Riku. Thankfully she was among the few who could resist Riku's incessant charm and winks. Anyway, girls had been Riku crazy for longer than he had really know Riku.

The phone was ringing, once, twice, and Riku picked up.

"Hello," Said a sleepy voice.

"Hi," Sora said.

"Sora, you woke me up," Riku mumbled on the other end. Riku liked to sleep, a lot. Eat, sleep, flirt, and sleep some more. That was his life.

"Yeah, anyway, what are you doing?" Sora asked.

"Talking," Riku replied.

"Once were done talking, do you want to go get ice cream or something," Sora asked.

"Ok," Riku answered.

"So I'll see you in ten minutes," Sora said. It was his turn to drive; they like to alternate so as not to force the high gas prices on each other.

"Yeah, Sora, are you ok?" Riku asked, his voice less tired.

"Yes," Sora said a little too fast.

"Sorry you just sound spacey, daydreaming Sora?" Riku laughed, how could Riku always read people. Maybe that was why girls like him so much.

"No, of course not, I'll see you in ten," Sora said, desperately trying to hide the frantic tone in his voice.

"Ok bye," Riku said, disbelief in his voice, well he would have an entire trip to the ice cream store to question him anyway.

"Bye" Sora said and hung up. He stood up from his bed and casually swept the hair away from his face. Riku would be asking about his 'spacey voice' in the car that was for sure. What would he say? I was daydreaming about our dear friend Kairi? He didn't even know where he stood on the whole Kairi issue.

But one thing was for sure, just the touch of her hand was enough to throw off his entire afternoon, and that was something.

His situation was not like one of those stories where the boy suddenly "discovers" that the girl, his best friend, is beautiful. Kairi had always been beautiful, it had been a fact for him, and he had never doubted it or not noticed it. But after the incident in his car, it was almost like seeing her in a new light, he had always accepted that she was pretty, but he didn't ever think that he would ever start feeling how he felt in the car. With blood rushing to his face, and his hand tingling where she touched. He never thought that she would make him feel so giddy.

Sora slipped on his bright yellow sneakers, maybe a little too bright for his liking, but his parents had got them for him. So anything that they had taken the time to put the thought into buying for him must be brilliant right? Not that he minded his usual gift of cash.

He opened the door, and felt a gust of fresh air hit his face. It was nice to be in the air-conditioned house but nothing in the world could beat the wonder that was fresh air. Sora walked to his car, and sat down in the seat, taking his time. The plan of going slow to prolong being confronted by a very persistent Riku was quite childish, but slightly entertaining.

He turned the key and the car started. He sighed, he might as well get Riku's confrontation over with. He drove off towards Riku's house. The ride was short, after all Riku only lived a few streets away.

Almost as soon as the car stopped, Riku jumped in. Sora could tell that he was keen to ask something. But was quite surprised when he saw Riku staring strait at him, not uttering a word.

"What?" he asked, inquiring his friend about why he was watching him so intently? What Sora was not aware of was the careful observations Riku made of Sora. The way he squirmed around in his seat in a lightly childish motion reveled something to him.

"You hiding something and I think its about our conversation on the phone," Riku said, vaguely aware of how correct he actually was.

"No," Sora said, pulling out of Riku's driveway, and concentrating on the rode.

"Than why won't you make eye contact with me?" Riku asked.

"Because I'm driving," Sora replied ever so sarcastically.

"Oh right," Riku said, still believing something was up.

"So sea salt ice cream or regular?" Sora asked. It was common knowledge around town that there were two ice cream shops; one sold Sea Salt ice cream, and the other sold regular. They were at constant competition for customers, they went so far as dressing their employees in giant Ice cream suits in the middle of summer.

"Sea- Salt has Tidus in the costume right?" Riku asked, abandoning his quest to find out why Sora had been so spacey. But he would return to it soon.

"Yea," Sora laughed. Life was good when you could watch you friends do there ridiculous jobs.

"Than lets go there," Riku stated happily.

"Ok," Sora said, and the car became quiet, which was a rare occurrence when Sora and Riku got together.

"Sora, don't get spacey wile your driving, I like my life," Riku said.

"Shut up," Sora told Riku, he actually wasn't spacing out.

"Thinking about someone," Riku asked in a know it all voice.

"Tidus in a ice cream suit," Sora said avoiding the subject.

"Thinking about a certain female someone," Riku inquired again.

"Riku," Sora said as if saying his name in a slow, almost irritated voice would make him stop asking.

"Well, don't avoid the question," Riku said he crossed his arms. Sora sighed.

"Yes, can we leave it at that," Sora spoke quickly. Riku nodded his head, knowing that asking more questions would only result in him being kicked out of the car and walking home. Riku wasn't in the mood for a long walk on this day.

But Riku was inwardly scheming to find out who little spiky hared Sora had a crush on. He would find out, he was Riku after all.

A/n hello Readers. I know this chapter isn't as long as it could be, sorry I only had a short two hours to type it. Anyway I hope you enjoyed it. I may not be able to update for about two weeks due to the randomness of my schedule. But do not worry; unless I am decapitated by flying monkeys or something like that, there will be another chapter up by the end of the month. Please review.


	3. Popcorn

Me: welcome back to chapter three

Riku: Nexlei does not own Kingdom hearts or any other random references

Me: that was easy

Riku: Yeah

Me: hahaha remember when these used to be funny

Riku: no

Me: maybe it wasn't funny to YOU

Riku: yeah, being promised cookies and not getting them, your a comedy genius Nexlei

Me: yes I am

Riku: the only sarcasm she gets is her own

Me: here is the chapter

Chapter Three

Popcorn

Kairi put her glass down with a soft clank. Nothing beat fresh squeezed orange juice. Nothing. Especially after a day filled with note taking on nothing in particular, and meeting a teacher who seemed to have the energy of a five year old. Kairi could only imagine what her attention span was like.

But most importantly the squeezing, pouring, and drinking of the oranges was a momentary distracter from him. Sora.

Sora was like a constant in her life. Sora was always there, and her feelings for him had been so set in stone, so lucid. They weren't meant to change. He was her constant. He was her best friend. But why oh, why did life, or her subconscious, which ever controlled this unexpected jolt, thrown her for a loop, leaving her confused. Left was right, and the sky was purple, and Einstein's hair was unnaturally flat. But most importantly her longest standing relationship, outside of family, had been turned upside down. At least in her head.

When she thought of it in a more realistic way, it was rather simple to say that nothing in there relationship had actually changed. Yes they had had that moment, weather it was one sided or not, she knew that it was perfectly feasible to ignore it and continue with her life and friendship with Sora as if nothing had happened.

'Nothing really had happened,' She thought to herself, knowing that what had occurred in the car was not all that unusual. They had simply reached for something at the same time and met hands. Everything else was all in her head. She must have imagined it. It was Sora after all. Sora who was ever so constant in her life. That was it and that was final.

Kairi smiled wearily to herself and carefully lifted up her orange juice cup taking a drink. She needed a nap. School did that to people. Something about the concept of sitting in a classroom chair for hours made her exhausted. And rightly so, just because she was sitting didn't mean that it wasn't tiring; listening to teachers speak.

Kairi slid off of her stool, grabbing her glass and landing on her feet without a sound. She walked over to the other side of the kitchen and placed her empty cup in the sink. She would have to wash that later, she left herself a mental note, which she knew would be forgotten in minutes. Kairi crossed across the kitchen, around the corner and up the stairs to her bedroom. She knew she wouldn't have much time for rest.

Within two hours her mother would be home with her sister, Ariel in tow. Ariel was only five years old and she spent the afternoons in daycare while her parents were at work. Kairi loved her sister dearly, although she had to admit that living in the room next door to her sister's had always made it much more difficult to get a nice nap.

With a thud she fell on her bed face down. She couldn't breathe like this, with her face utterly buried in her pillow. So she mustered all of the strength she had left, and flipped herself onto her back. She stared strait at the ceiling for a moment before her eyes closed, and she fell into a light sleep.

She heard ringing, annoying ringing. Over and over and over. It was never-ending. She didn't know where it was coming from, but it sounded vaguely familiar. Over and over it rung. Cell phone? Was that it? She wondered.

Her eyes opened to a blurry world. She clumsily felt into her pocket and pulled out the object that had awoken her from her much needed and deserved slumber.

She opened her cell phone and put it to her ear. Why had she chosen such an irritation ring tone anyway? What could have possibly possessed her to choose that silly little tune? Perhaps things sound different when you were more conscious? But that didn't matter; what mattered was someone was calling her and she had yet to say hello.

"Hello," She said into the phone, trying her best not to sound like she had just been woken up.

"Hi Kairi," A voice that was unmistakably Riku's spoke into the phone. Kairi sighed, how very like Riku to wake her up during her nap. It was just one of those things that he would do.

"What's up," Kairi asked, rubbing her eyes with her free hand so she could see more clearly.

"Me and Sora are eating ice cream," Riku said, beating around the bush. It was annoying when people called and made small talk for a half an hour, only to tell her the real point of the call in five seconds. Some people didn't think of cell phone bills, and Riku was one of them.

"So," Kairi said, she knew that Riku hadn't called her so he could inform her of his ice cream consumption. He wasn't that self centered (usually).

"So, after were going back to Sora's house to watch movies," Riku said.

"And I'm invited,"

"You assume things too quickly, Kairi, for all you know I could be calling you just to inform you of the whereabouts of you beloved," Riku spoke confidently.

"Do you mean yourself or Sora?" Kairi questioned sarcastically.

"Awww Kairi I'm so glad you think of me so highly, but I meant Sora,"

"Just friends," Kairi mumbled, pushing thoughts of earlier as far from her mind as possible.

"Of course,"

"But seriously, what did you call me for," Kairi said, feeling the need to get on with the conversation.

"Were picking you up in ten minutes and going to Sora's to watch movies," Riku stated.

"No choice in the matter I presume," Kairi smiled.

"As long as you don't contract a contagious disease in the next ten minutes,"

"See you than" Kairi said, shaking her head, now awake. There really was no such thing as a normal conversation with Riku. Kairi slid off her bed and slowly stood up. Her arms reached over her head and she stretched.

She quickly ran a brush thorough her hair a few times to fix it from the disheveled mess that it had been after waking up. The sun had not set yet so it couldn't be that late. Kairi pulled on her sneakers and walked down the stairs.

"Ariel PUT THAT DOWN," Kairi's mother shouted from the other room. It was a wonder her sister hadn't woken her up earlier. Maybe miracles did happen. Kairi shuffled into the kitchen to see her mother cooking something, and her sister holding up a wooden spoon, about to hit it against the kitchen chairs. Heaven forbid her mother's precious chairs have a single scratch on them.

"Mom, I'm going to Sora's house," Kairi said.

"Hello dear, I had a nice day, thank you for being so considerate and taking a moment of your precious time to ask," Her mother said.

"Sorry mom, how was your day," Kairi said, knowing that ignoring her mothers comment would get her nowhere.

"Good thank you," Her mother smiled, glad that she had gotten her way, "How was yours,"

"As good as the first day of school gets," Kairi said.

"Do you like your teachers," Her mom asked.

"Yes, there all very nice," Kairi said, although she knew full well that in a months time she would be explaining to her mother that they were all truly nasty for assigning such stupid essays and endless papers.

"That's good," Her mom said, "Dad is doing work in the other room," Her mother informed her.

"Ok," Kairi said, looking in the diriction of the room where her father always did his work, wanting to get back on the subject of her going to Sora's. Her mother must have read her mind.

"Are you going to eat at Sora's," the women cooking asked. Kairi nodded, "ok, be back by eleven, you have school tomorrow,"

"Ok, bye mom," Kairi said, and turned around. She walked out of her house, and into the afternoon air. It was a nice day. She stood waiting outside, knowing that Riku and Sora would be there soon.

After a minute or so, Sora pulled up and Kairi got in his car.

"Hi guys," Kairi said.

"Hi," The both said at the same time. Kairi laughed, it was odd when they said things at the same time.

It didn't take long to get to Sora's house, and soon the three found themselves getting out of the car on Sora's long driveway.

"Are your parents home," Kairi asked, just curious.

"No, there working late today," Sora, said, "why?"

"Kairi wants to throw a crazy party and have mad s…"

"RIKU," Kairi cut Riku off before he could finish his surely dirty, and disgusting statement.

"Yes," Riku asked innocently. Kairi just shook her head, Riku was Riku.

"So do you guys want to go in, or just have deranged conversations out here," Sora asked, unlocking the front door. Kairi laughed and walked inside, she loved Sora's house. It had the best high ceilings, and the comfiest couch she had ever had the pleasure of sitting on.

Riku and Kairi immediately walked to the TV room, each sat down happily on the comfiest couch that ever existed.

"Orange soda, right guys," Sora called from the kitchen.

"Yes," Kairi called back. Orange soda was both her and Riku's favorite, and Sora had hung out with them long enough to know that.

"Good to be back on the couch," Riku stated happily and patted the couch as if it was a lost dog that had returned home.

Kairi agreed happily. She looked around at Sora's familiar house. She spent a lot of her waking time in Sora's house. Riku and Kairi came over at least five times every week. Not because they didn't like there own homes, but because Sora's house had the best couch… you just couldn't beat it.

Sora returned with three orange sodas and a huge bowl of popcorn.

"What movie are watching," Kairi asked, looking from Sora to Riku.

"Oh… I don't know," Sora said, putting all of the sodas down on a small table.

"You mean you made popcorn, and got Soda, but you haven't decided on a movie yet," Kairi laughed, making eye contact with Sora. As much as she tried to fight it, something in the back of her mind pointed out that Sora had lovely blue eyes. She broke the eye contact and focused her attention to Riku, who had taken out his cell pone and was currently flipping through pictures.

"Here it is," Riku said in an excited voice that would make Ms. Yuffie proud.

"What," Kairi asked in confusion. Sora laughed, already knowing what Riku was looking at. Kairi grabbed Riku's cell phone right from his hand, and looked at the picture that the boys had been laughing at, half expecting it to be something nasty.

Nasty wasn't really the word. More like frightening, but still it was funny. There on the small cell phone screen was a picture of a very angry Tidus in a Sea-Salt Ice Cream suit.

"You guys are mean," Kairi said trying, and dreadfully failing to stop herself from laughing, "you took a picture".

"Don't worry, its not like were going to post it all over the Internet," Sora said. Riku shot him a funny look.

"Were not," Riku said almost sounding disappointed, but he quickly put a smile on his face, "ok so what movie are watching,"

"Lets watch The Sound of Music," Kairi said, although she knew the idea would be immediately shot down.

"Ok," Riku and Sora said mock happily, Kairi pretended that she did not hear the sarcasm, and grabbed the movie from the shelf. She loved that movie, and it would be fun to see if Sora and Riku could sit through a musical without doing anything stupid. Kairi put the movie into the DVD played.

"Kairi, we were joking," Riku said to her as she turned and smiled.

"What, but I know you guys would simply LOVE to sit and watch this classic with me," Kairi smiled what she hoped would be a 'classic cute and innocent little me' smile. Riku didn't buy it, Sora on the other hand did.

He wasn't usually thick enough to fall for Kairi's smile. But something about her today made him want to overlook this trick and let her watch the movie. He decided now was not the time to question exactly what that something was. Besides watching the movie would make Kairi happy.

"Common Riku, its just a movie," Sora said, taking Kairi's side. Kairi smiled a wicked smile at Riku as she pressed the play button.

Riku sighed; at least he had his orange soda. They sat and watched the first half of the movie.

"Riku, stop throwing popcorn at the screen," Kairi protested, as Riku stopped his hand mid throw and shoved some popcorn into his mouth.

"Sorry," Riku muttered sarcastically, looking to Sora who would surely take his side. After all Sora always understood Riku's pain and he would surly understand that Riku was bored with the movie and was throwing popcorn, not to annoy anyone, but to keep his sanity,

But poor Riku was wrong. Sora shot him an almost scolding look, before looking at the movie. Riku sighed, and turned his attention back to the musical.

But soon enough Riku's attention on the movie faded away, and he turned his attention back to throwing popcorn. Not at the movie, but at Sora's unusually spiky hair. A piece hit Sora right on the nose, causing the brown haired boy to turn to his friend.

Sora was fast, and before anyone knew what he was doing Sora had grabbed a handful of popcorn and threw it at Riku. Riku threw some back. Kairi was right about them not being able to sit through a movie without doing something stupid.

Soon there little fight turned into a full-blown popcorn war. Although it wasn't like they hadn't seen it coming. At some point Kairi had joined in, causing it to become a massive three-way popcorn battle.

Sounds epic doesn't it? The throwing of the popcorn did not stop until the credits came on screen.

"Guys, as much as I love throwing popcorn in your faces, I think we should clean up before my parents get home," Sora motioned around him. The couch was now stuffed with popcorn, and the floor was littered with it too. Not to mention much of it was all over Sora, Kairi, and Riku's cloths.

"Good idea," Riku said. Sora left the room quickly to get a vacuum.

"Sora was really fast to agree with you today," Riku pointed out after Sora left the room.

"Yeah, he was probably just making up for you guys dragging me to see that violent movie last week," Kairi laughed.

"Sure…" Riku said not fully believing that to be the truth.

"What do you mean?" Kairi asked.

"You guys didn't finally get together or something did you," Riku stated bluntly. Riku apparently only beat around the bush when he wanted to raise Kairi's cell phone bill.

"No, of course not, you know were just friends," Kairi said.

Riku didn't have the chance to further investigate because Sora walked back into the room. He was carrying a large vacuum.

The three spent the rest of the night cleaning up the enormous mess that they had made. It took nearly an hour to get every piece of popcorn out of the TV room, but it was done somehow.

Once everything was neat, they all got in Sora's car so he could drive them home. He drove up to Kairi's house and parked the car so she could get out.

Kairi climbed out of the car and shut the door. She started walking to her front door.

"What are you doing, walk her to the door," Riku said shoving Sora in the direction of the car door.

"What I'm not her boyfriend or anything," Sora mumbled slightly embarrassed. It wasn't like this was the first time he had dropped her off. Riku was probably just trying to get them together, likethe rest of the young population.

"Just be polite," Riku said, shaking his head. Sora got out of the car and walked along side Kairi up to her front door.

"Good night Kairi," Sora said when she put her key in the door.

"Good knight Sora," Kairi said opening the door, and walking in, Sora turned around and heard the thud of the door, signaling that it had shut.

He walked back to his car, intent on asking Riku, just why he had practically shoved him out of the car to walk Kairi to the door.

"What did you say," Riku bombarded him as soon he got in the car. Sora shook his head at his silly friend.

"I said good night Kairi," Sora said almost nonchalantly, almost.

"And what did she say,"

"Good night Sora," Sora said.

"Aren't you glad I made you do that," Riku said, laughing to himself.

"Sure Riku," Sora answered, not bothering to hide the sarcasm in his voice. Although he did not admit it. He was happy for the extra moments with Kairi, she was his best friend after all.

A/n Hi everyone, I hope you liked the chapter. It was a little longer that chapter two. Not much else to say, so please review.


	4. The Window

Me: Welcome to chapter 4

Riku: Nexlei does not own kingdom hearts or any other random references

Me: But I love kingdom hearts and the random references

Riku: but you don't own them

Me: I know

Riku: Nexlei also told me to tell you all that she is sorry for ignoring this story for two moths

Me: Ummm yeah. Anyway on with the chapter

Chapter 4

The Window

In the corner of a brick house there was a dress. In a closet of course, where else would it be. The closet was in a small bedroom. On the leftmost wall, if one was facing away from the door, facing the other way was a whole different story.

The dress wasn't much to mention per say, although she did like to stare at it from time to time. Of course only when her life came to a standstill, on those rare moments of utter nothing, when she would have a few minutes to lie on her bed and stare at her ceiling, her attention would shift. As interesting as the pattern less void of a white ceiling was, she would turn her head to the left and look into her open closet.

The dress was always there in all of its glory. She had bought it in a store with a name that always escaped her. But she could remember the day. It was the day she had convinced herself that she was actually clinically insane. Well not really, she never really believed that. But it was a good excuse for the exact reason of buying the dress.

The dress was a bluish color. To the lighter side of the spectrum, she convinced herself when she had once, in her mind, tried to describe the color. It went down to her knees and puffed out at the end similar to those insane dresses from the fifties. The top was held up by two small straps.

It had only been worn once, in the fitting room of the nameless, or at least in her memory, store. She had fallen madly in love with this dress. Pathetic she knew, but when she wore it she felt classy. Classy was a laughable term, it wasn't that she had no self esteem, but when she saw herself in this dress she was who she wanted to be. She was a jeans and tee shirt girl, but when she wore this dress she was someone important.

Everyone has one item that is a guilty pleasure, and this was hers. Although most girls opt for teddy bears or fuzzy pink blankets, she loved this dress she had bought a year ago, the dress that she had nowhere to wear.

Her parents had never held parties at their house. Or at least not the type of party that she could wear this dress too.

Of course there was homecoming. She would have worn it last year had her mom not declared an official tradition that she buy her a dress every year. Not that she minded. She did not want to wear this dress, that she loved so much, to a school event filled with crazy people from her school dancing to bad music in a bad way. Her eyes still burned from last year, figuratively of course.

She didn't have a problem with that "bad dancing" honestly, she just wished that people would do "bad dancing" in places more appropriate. Like bedrooms. Honestly.

She would never tell, or at least had no intention of telling, anyone. Not even Sora or Riku. Heaven knows that Riku would laugh like the cartoon hyenas. Sora would just stare, thinking of something that she assumed was not incredibly nice.

Kairi turned her head away from the closet. She had unknowingly been staring for ten minutes. Not a record, but still a long time. She had just finished typing an essay for Ms. Yuffie. Not an essay really, more like the mother of all essays.

Kairi waited until ten o'clock on Sunday, the day before it was due, to start typing. It just wouldn't be the same if she hadn't procrastinated. She knew this, Riku knew this, Sora didn't.

He just didn't understand the value of procrastination on English projects. He loved English and had spent the entire Saturday working on it.

The three of them had been at Riku's house. Riku and Kairi were sitting on Riku's (not quite as comfy as Sora's) couch playing Smash Brothers. Meanwhile Sora had been sitting in the spiny computer chair across the room, using Riku's computer to type his essay.

Kairi's cell phone went off. Strange that anyone would call at eleven thirty, she looked down and saw who it was. Sora, well that explained it. Kairi opened her phone and put it to her ear.

"Hello," She said quietly, lest she wake her family who were all asleep by now.

"Hi Kairi," Sora said as if he wasn't calling her at eleven thirty.

"Yes, Sora," Kairi asked.

"I'm outside your house," Sora said in a blunt way that both said a lot and left out everything.

"…why," Kairi asked. Sora could be unpredictable.

"Because your going with me to Riku's house," Sora said.

"What too afraid of the dark to go by yourself?" Kairi laughed at her own joke.

"Naw, but you live on the way so... you're coming," Sora said.

"Its eleven thirty,"

"That's never stopped us before,"

"I'm ignoring whatever that might have meant," Kairi sighed.

"What I have no idea what you're talking about," Sora stated in a tone that obviously had every idea.

"I think we're going to have to limit the amount of time that you spend with Riku," Kairi laughed.

"Whatever Kairi, my cell phone bill is killing me, just come out," Sora said.

"Ok, see you," Kairi said.

"Bye," Sora said and hung up with a loud click. Kairi laughed at her friend, for no apparent reason, other than the fact that he was so utterly himself. She got up, making sure that her appearance wasn't too scary. She tiptoed out of the house. As it turned out Sora was there and this wasn't some elaborate prank to lock her out of her house… not that she had been expecting that, really.

"Hi," Sora greeted cheerfully from his car.

"Hello," Kairi climbed into the passengers' side, and Sora pulled out.

"So aren't you wondering why were going to Riku's house?" Sora asked.

"Some elaborate sex fest," Kairi said in a nonchalant voice, before cracking up. She really needed to work on her strait faces. Sora sent a funny glance at her.

"No, actually I just forgot my English paper at his house," Sora said.

"Oh,"

"So, I need to go and print it off, it shouldn't take too long, but we defiantly have to steal from his secret stash while we are there," Sora said. Many people would assume that when Sora said secret stash he was referring to drugs… people just do not trust teenagers. But in fact he was referring to Riku's secret stash of Reece's Peanut Butter Cups. They were good.

Riku had a tendency to keep a large bag of them hidden under his bed. Sora and Kairi had happily discovered them in the third grade while they had been looking for a monopoly board under his bed. They had been taking from the stash ever since. Riku knew and they knew he knew. But it was an unwritten rule that he not say anything and let his friends continue to take chocolate.

They pulled up to Riku's house. Kairi immediately noticed that there were no cars in the driveway.

"Let's go," Sora was not observant.

"Ok," Kairi said getting out of the car and walking towards Riku's door. They knocked. And they knocked again. Nothing, there were no lights on and no one was answering.

"Did you ask Riku before coming?" Kairi asked turning to Sora and fighting the urge to cross her arms.

"Why would I do that?" Kairi didn't even bother to answer that one. It was true that the three often randomly showed up at each others house expecting food and entertainment, but not at eleven thirty.

"I know," Sora said happily.

"You know what," Kairi asked.

"I'll call him," Sora smiled like he had won the Nobel Prize.

"Go ahead," Kairi said.

Sora pulled out his cell phone and dialed Riku's number.

"Hello," Riku said especially quiet. This was very unlike him.

"Hey Riku," Sora said, "why do you sound so funny? Are you sick?"

"No, but Sora, I'm kinda busy right now could you call back later," Riku said.

"No, I need to talk to you now, and where are you?" Sora asked. Riku sighed loudly on the other end of the phone.

"I'm on a date,"

"But it's a Sunday night," Sora said, "Isn't that a little unconventional," Sora laughed and Kairi stared at him trying to understand half of the conversation.

"No,"

"There aren't any lights on out here, are your parents home?" Sora questioned.

"They're on a business trip,"

"But Riku I need to get into your house," Sora complained.

"Why?"

"Because I need my English project," Sora said quietly, knowing what was coming next.

"You're interrupting my date for an English Paper?" Riku said in disbelief. Sora bit his bottom lip thinking of what to say next.

"Yes," Well that didn't require thought.

"Ok, if it's that important, listen closely," Riku said.

"Ok I'm listening,"

"I assumed,"

"Moving on Riku,"

"Right, go around to the back of the house, on the left side of the house there is a window, it should be unlocked,"

"Riku…,"

"Open it, it leads to the basement and you may have to jump over stuff, well power tools," Riku said.

"Riku, I'm not going to…"

"Just walk up the stairs and it leads into the house,"

"Riku I know how basements' work,"

"Not everyone is that smart Sora,"

"But there is no way I am going to break into your house, don't you have some kind of security system," Sora said, shaking his head.

"No, and if you don't want you English project feel free to go home," Sora could see the smirk on Riku's face from miles away.

"Fine, but Kairi's here, "

"She can sneak in the window too," Riku stated.

"But Riku... jumping over power tools isn't safe," Sora said the last part quietly not wanting Kairi to hear.

"Sheesh Sora, just be a gentleman an go first," Riku started, "Than you get the pleasure of helping the fair lady climb through the window," There was a smack heard in the background… apparently Riku's date didn't like him using the term fair lady about another girl.

"Riku…"

"I've got to go Sora, have fun, just not on the couch," Riku hung up before he could say anything to that. Why was everything always a joke? Well when the jokes weren't directed at him he supposed they were funny. But otherwise no.

"Ummm Kairi," Sora turned sheepishly too look at Kairi.

"Yes,"

"We need to jump through the window,"

"I'm sorry?" Kairi said not getting.

"We need to jump through the window into Riku's basement over dangerous power tools and certain danger to get my very important English project," Sora said bluntly.

"Sora, is an English project," Kairi paused, "worth it,"

"In a word, yes,"

"Ok," Kairi said. Jumping through a window couldn't be that hard. Well that's what she wanted herself to think anyway.

Riku was always the cause of many interesting events. In sixth grade he had made them sneak onto the roof because he kicked his favorite blitzball up there and he couldn't possibly get it himself. But Sora and Kairi had stuck with him even though he could never do anything in a conventional way. In the sixth grade they could have asked a janitor to get the ball for them. Riku didn't need to sneak into the teacher's lounge to get a soda, but he just didn't feel like walking across the school. Those detentions were long and boring but at least they were being punished together.

Kairi and Sora walked to the back of the house. They had to feel there way along the wall as the headlights on Sora's car had long since gone out. It was pitch black. They stumbled around the corner and into Riku's back yard and walked to the left side. They saw the window in all of its fabled glory.

Sora pulled it up, Riku was right it was unlocked.

"I'll go first," Sora said, looking down into the pitch black room, which was below them. It was the kind of basement that had a window near the top of the room for no apparent reason. Except of course breaking in to save one's precious English project.

"Do you have a flashlight?" Kairi asked.

"No," Sora said.

"Don't die," Kairi said giving him a smile.

"Aww you really care," Sora said, his cheeks suddenly feeling a little warmer than they had before.

"Of course, who would drive me to school… heaven forbid that I have to take a bus," Kairi cringed; busses were not her favorite kind of transportation.

"Well, I guess it's important that I survive than," Sora said and put his food on the window sill. He grabbed the top and hoisted himself up, before slowly sliding down and attempting not to hit anything. He disappeared behind the window.

"OWWW," Kairi heard him scream.

"SORA," Kairi panicked.

"Relax Kairi it's only a paper cut," Sora said.

"YOU IDIOT," Kairi shouted.

"Don't wake the neighbors," Sora said laughing.

"You're an idiot," Kairi said.

"But there really is a lot of paper down here" Sora said.

"I'm coming down," Kairi said and started to climb on the window sill.

"Wait, when you drop, it's about 5 feet, just go strait down, don't turn left or right," Sora told her. Kairi assumed that turning left or right would cause her to fall on one of Riku's father's power tools.

"Ok," Kairi sat on the windowsill with her feet dangling.

"Slide down slowly, I'll catch you," Sora said.

"Sora, do you think I need to be caught," Kairi sighed, she was not given an answer.

Kairi slowly slid down, although gravity did its work and she soon found herself in a fall, readying herself for the ground, she was caught off guard when someone caught her. He had actually caught her.

"What, I thought you were joking," Kairi laughed.

"Like I would let you fall," Kairi, for the first time noticed her arms were around Sora's neck, she laughed nervously. She still couldn't see a thing.

"We better go, before my parents' notice I'm not home," Kairi said. Sora was spaced out, "Sora," Kairi said.

"Oh, Sorry," Sora lowered her to the ground, slowly, not necessarily deliberately he would assure everyone. But whether that was the truth or not remains to be seen. He than jumped up and pulled the window down.

Nothing else was said between the two as they stumbled across the basement to the stairs leading up to the hallway.

They climbed upstairs and into the hallway, which led directly to the living room. As soon as they got there, Sora made a mad dash to the computer to print out his precious essay.

"You love your essay more than anything," Kairi said.

"Yes, more than anything," Of course he never said anyone. Kairi did not notice this and in all truth nether did Sora.

Kairi took a seat on Riku's couch. Not incredibly comfy, but she was tired. It must have been midnight by then. She looked over at Sora who was reading his essay through one last time. He was never a type A, except when it came to his writing.

The assignment had been to write about someone who had been a major inspiration in your life. Most of the girls in school had chosen their favorite singer, but there was one oddball who had chosen Riku. He took this right to his already oversized ego. Kairi had written about Albert Einstein. How anyone could be so smart and have such amazing hair was truly an inspiration. Of course she hadn't written this, but that was close to her true motive of choosing him. She had no idea who Sora had chosen. Probably some famous author.

"Are you done yet," Kairi asked. Sora shrugged. They had not turned on any lights, but she could see the outline of her friend from the light of the computer he was paying way to much attention to.

"Ok," Sora said after a minute.

"Good, now we can do what we really came here to do," Kairi said. Sora grabbed the papers from the printer and stood up. Kairi jumped enthusiastically to her feet. She dashed in the direction of the stairs. Riku's secret stash was waiting. The lights were still out, lest the neighbors thing that Riku's house was being robbed. But that didn't matter; the two knew his house so well they could move around blindfolded if they wanted.

Riku's room was a mess. It always was. Cleaning was something that only happened when his mother decided to have a party. Of course, only because one has to walk by his room to get to the upstairs bathroom. It was obvious that there had not been a party for a long time.

Sora nudged in the direction of Riku's nightstand which could be seen in the little light coming through the window; more than likely from the streetlights.

"Love letters," Kairi laughed. She had had her locker next to Riku's one year. Every morning they would walk into school, he would open his locker and there would be at least one love letter every day. If not more, there usually were more.

"I have no idea what he does,"

"Me nether," Kairi laughed. She ducked down to the bed and grabbed the bag filled with Reeces.

"Victory is mine… ours," Sora said over exaggeratedly.

"Yes," Kairi laughed, they each shoved a handful into their pockets and put the Reeces back.

"That could have been way more dramatic," Sora said.

"Yes but it's late, I'm tired," Kairi stated. Sora nodded his head a little. The two walked back downstairs, and to the main entrance.

As they were stepping out the front door Sora realized something.

"You know, I could have just opened the door for you… you never had to go in through the window," Sora said shaking his head at his stupidity.

a/n I realize that I haven't updated for a while… please refrain from forming an angry mob… you have no idea how many angry mobs I have helped organize when other people don't update. But I promise I'm not a hypocrite, my computer was broken. Well this last month anyway.

Just a note to all of you, I don't advise breaking into your friends house's, sneaking onto roofs, or teacher's lounges. Riku is not conventional and his ideas are rarely sane. So avoid them, use common sense.

Ok that's Chapter 4, the next one should be up soon. Reviewers get nonexistent cookies.


	5. The Colorful Flames

Me: Hello

Riku: Nexlei does not own Kingdom Hearts or any other random references

Me: and I would like to take the time to tell you all that the things in this chapter should not be attempted, or tried or done by anyone.

Riku: she's actually serious… wow

Me: anyway enjoy the chapter

Chapter 5

The Colorful Flames

There was something about that color. That flamboyant red, that drove him mad. Mad of course being a figurative term. Sometimes. The way it shimmered against the sky, day and night. The way it lit up the room, yard, mailbox, wherever it may be. He knew, from the moment that he first saw that color… that shining beauty… that magnificent spark… it was love.

Axel loved fire. He loved everything about fire, he loved the way fire made him feel. Although some may say that such opinions should be followed with careful psychoanalysis and strong medication (and a strait jacket, if insurance covers it).

He and Roxas, his best friend, had formulated plan after plan to set fire to or otherwise inflame substances of any kind. Unfortunately for society, this year they were taking chemistry. Anything that they didn't already know about combustion, they were sure to find out this year.

Many would see their aptitude for science and call them genius. A mistake their chemistry teacher had made this year.

It was second period and it was a Monday. It really was wonderful how Mondays could bring joy to the faces of students across the nation. Joy, of course, meaning agonizing pain.

Second period just so happened to be Roxas and Axel's favorite class. Chemistry. Kairi, Sora and Riku were also in this wondrous class.

The teacher, who went by Mr. Vexen, was an old guy, the kind that had favorites and tried to hide it in the most obvious manner. So obvious in fact that most of the students were quite sure that he deliberately tried to hide it poorly, just to remind them that they all ,for lack of better words, sucked.

Roxas and Axel were the favorites of this years' class. Lucky them. Sora and Kairi would sit in their uncomfortable metal school chairs desperately trying to figure out how to derive chemical formulas from some theorem written in another language while the teacher would spend hours and hours going on about how Roxas and Axel were the smartest students he had ever taught.

They half expected him to come into class and demand that Roxas and Axel stand on a pedestal (that he had conveniently made by combining some unpronounceable item with another).

Today was the first lab of the year. Kairi, although a bit nervous, was a little excited too. After weeks of going over the many different ways they could be killed while performing such experiments they actually got to try one. Roxas and Axel could barley keep still in their seats. Trying the best they could to keep it unnoticeable of course.

The lab was literally centered around fire. The different colors that elements gave off when they were burned. In other words fireworks, or the pyrotechnics behind it. That was how Sora liked to think about it. Although the chemistry teacher insisted that it had something to do with quantum mechanics and the electromagnetic spectrum.

Sora glanced over at Roxas and Axel. They were grinning. He raised his eyebrows at them, they nodded in his direction. This could only mean one thing. They were going to do something, something that was not on the procedures of the lab. Something involving fire, that was given of course.

Sora nudged Riku, and tilted his head not so subtly in the direction of the two pyros. Riku understood, when people have been friends as long as Riku and Sora, words were not needed to read each other's thoughts. Sora turned his head in the direction of Kairi who was scribbling down notes in the attentive way that any future science major would. He than glanced back at Roxas and Axel, one thought running through his mind, 'she doesn't realize what they're going to do'.

Kairi was never one to be unobservant. Well, not usually anyway. She would probably notice if her sister disturbed anything in her room, regardless of how disorderly it was without her sister's help. She would notice if Sora's hair was mysteriously not spiked, although most people would probably notice that. She knew when Riku was dating a girl that he REALLY liked. She could see it in his eyes, on the rare occasions that that happened.

But Kairi had not thought of the affect that a school assignment based on fire would have on her friends. In most cases, this probably wouldn't matter. But with them, it was best to watch out when they schemed. Sora had learned this early.

Sora would have filled her in, honestly, but she was on the other side of the room. Mr. Vexen was the type of teacher who separated friends as soon as they showed any sign of joy in each others' company. Riku and Sora had gotten lucky.

Throwing a pall of paper with a note on it was sure to get the attention of the teacher, as would making dramatic hand gestures, so he would have to wait a few minutes and tell her when they were actually starting the lab.

The teacher droned on for a few minutes, waving Roxas and Axel's tests around for the whole room to see. They had gotten stickers, only one hundreds get stickers.

Once that over exaggerated rant was over, he prepared them for the lab, going over all last minute safety precautions and such. Than they were free to join their lab groups for the actual labs.

Riku had the privilege of working with Kairi as the teacher had pulled names from a hat to get the lab groups (he was in a particularly good mood after grading Roxas and Axels' tests). So instead of assigning groups based on how much the students utterly despised being in each other's presence, it was luck that choose. And as luck would have it, Riku was placed with Kairi and Sora was placed with Roxas and Axel.

Mr. Vexen had gone out of his way to declare Sora to be the luckiest boy on earth to the entire class, when he was assigned to be in their group. But Sora knew better, growing up with the two boys did that.

Sora and Riku rushed to Kairi and pointed in Roxas and Axel's direction.

"Yes, I know they did well on the test," Kairi resisted, with all her will power, the urge to roll her eyes.

"No, Kairi… I mean," Sora began, but was cut off by the ever suave Riku.

"Axel plus Roxas plus flame lab,"

The little equation was all that needed to be said and Kairi's eyes lit up in understanding.

"I'll steer clear," She smiled sympathetically as Sora who literally couldn't.

"Sora, buddy, remember, stop. Drop. And roll," Riku clapped him on the back and gave him a little shove towards his lab table where Roxas and Axel were having a frantic conversation, with their voices just above whispers.

Mr. Vexen looked in the direction of Riku, who was laughing at his latest witty comment, and gave him a look of disapproval. He had the impossible ability to smell flun from several miles away.

Sora cautiously walked towards the lab table eyeing the two warily…

"Sooooora," Axel called motioning for him to come closer. Sora wasn't exactly sure what to expect from the two.

"Yes,"

"Stop spazzing, we're not going to do anything near your girl… I mean Kairi," Axel corrected himself, not wanting to hear the 'we're just friends speech' for the third time that morning (not that he believed that speech in any way, shape or form).

"So, you are going to do something than…" Sora stated. He was calm enough; he mentally assured himself that he hadn't been fidgeting, spazzzing or anything else that may show any sign of apprehension or nervousness

"How could we not?" Roxas almost laughed.

"Any consequences?" Sora questioned.

"None to speak of," Axel said with a cunning grin.

"What's your plan?" Sora questioned, he was their lab partner and he like his eyebrows enough to ask how he could possibly avoid them being fried.

"Well, were not going to tell you, just go with what we say," Roxas said, while playing with his checkered wrist band.

To understand Roxas and Axel, one had to understand how they operated. They had a terrible addiction to fire, explosives, and anything remotely related to combustion. This addiction would, of course, drive them to do strange things. Blowing up mailboxes, setting off fireworks in their neighbors yard (at two in the morning, they had style), and things of that sort. Never would anyone get hurt in their shenanigans, that wasn't their objective. It wasn't even their objective to scare people (although a few innocent pranks, such as lighting fireworks off at two in the morning in their neighbors back yard, did happen from time to time). They truly had a fascination with fire.

But that wasn't the most inherently brilliant part of their little system. The best part was, that they never got caught. Never. Not by authority figures anyway. In fact nether Roxas or Axel had never even gotten a detention. Their deceptive skills were amazing. They had the innate ability to make themselves seem completely unrelated to the things that they did, or in the very least, make it look like it was and accident due to their "clumsiness". How they did it, no one knew.

Sora looked down and saw Roxas had stopped toying with his wristband and started readily working on the gas faucet. The gas faucet was the source of fuel for the burner. Mr. Vexen began to speak suddenly.

"Ok, once you have set up and gathered all of the materials necessary, you can start," Sora looked back down at his lab partners when he heard a small noise. The pointy part of the gas faucet had fallen right off, making it impossible to connect to the burner.

Roxas grinned, this was the start of their plan, Sora knew. Roxas processed to raise his hand to get Mr. Vexen's attention. Mr. Vexen saw that one of his two favorite students needed help and made his way to the station.

"Yes Roxas, "

"Mr. Vexen, our gas faucet broke, can we move to that lab table over there," Roxas pointed to the station near the cart filled with supplies for the day's experiment.

"Yes, of course," He smiled at Roxas and Axel, before shooting Sora a look that demanded explanation for the broken faucet. Sora averted his eyes, pretending not to have seen said look and walked over to the other station with Roxas and Axel.

"So, should I get the materials?" Sora questioned Roxas and Axel, who were setting up the burner, dangerously close to the edge of the table.

"No, I got it," Axel said.

"You should probably move to the other side of the table," Roxas pointed out. Sora was standing on the side that was closer to the cart. He than figured out there plan.

It made sense, why else would they move to the table near the cart, or tell him to go a little distance away from the cart. Whatever they were doing had something to do with the supplies cart. If only he could figure out what.

Axel had, discreetly, pushed the cart closer to the lab table than gave Roxas a ready nod. Roxas took the matches and lit the burner.

What happened next was brilliant to say the least. Not three seconds after lighting the burner, Roxas had somehow manipulated it to move the six inches through the air and land, not only on the cart, but somewhere specific.

The center of the cart was filled with crushed elements in three huge metal bowls. The burner landed in one of these bowls, and instantly a green flame shot three feet into the air. Cue the dramatic acting. They couldn't have anyone think they were enjoying this after all.

"Oh no," Roxas pretended, gaping at the flame, Mr. Vexen's attention was grabbed and he saw what they were screaming about.

Roxas than did something to defy some safety rules, by the rubber cord, he picked up the burner, but than 'accidentally" dropped it into the next bowl, which started a red flame.

"Here, I'll get the other bowl out of the way, so it won't catch on fire too," Axel said, running to the other side of the cart and picking up another bowl, tilting it in just the right way for it to catch on fire too.

"Oops,"

Sora was staring with his mouth agape. They were only supposed to burn extremely small quantities of these elements, to see the color of the flame, but because the bowls were filled to the brim… the fires were huge, each about three feet tall and as wide as the metal bowl would allow them to be.

He unconsciously looked back at Kairi, he had been doing this a lot lately he noticed. Ever since that day in the car anyway, his eyes would be drawn to her, almost like a magnet. She seemed amused.

"ROXAS, AXEL, BACK AWAY FROM THE FIRES" Mr. Vexen came storming through the classroom, fire blanket in hand and ready to suffocate the rainbow fires that were burning near the lab station. The entire class was watching with fascinated looks on their faces. This was definitely the most interesting thing that had happened in a long time.

Somehow Mr. Vexen had managed to throw the fire blanket over Roxas and Axels' little display. He let out a huge breath and looked ready to start yelling.

Sora was shocked, if Mr. Vexen really did yell at them, it would be the first time they had ever gotten in real trouble for their actions.

"SORA, what did you do," He should have figured that the anger would be directed at him. He put his hands up in defense.

"It was an accident sir," Sora said, hiding the fact that he was a little scared. Mr. Vexen looked in the direction of his lab partners, who proceeded to nod in agreement to what Sora had just said.

"Consider yourself on probation," Mr. Vexen eyed Sora. Sora nodded his head and Mr. Vexen turned around.

"Now what," a particularly bold student, Wakka, thought aloud. All of the samples had been burned.

"Clean up the labs, and go back to you're desks, we will be doing some bookwork for the rest of the period," Mr. Vexen spoke the last part in a happy, sadistic way. Only further proving what everyone already knew, he enjoyed his students' discomfort.

"Sorry about that," Roxas said, he couldn't help but smiling.

"Don't worry about it," Sora told him shaking his head, he grabbed the paper towels and started to scrub the lab station.

"Oh, don't worry, we won't," Axel put in. Although his attitude was deceiving he really was a nice person, Sora knew, so he let that comment go without question. It was just his odd personality.

They finished scrubbing the table soon after, and all sat down to do bookwork. Mountains of book work would be more correct. The fire had put Mr. Vexen in a horrible mood as he would have to fill out paperwork on it. No one liked paperwork, not even nasty science teachers. So he had assigned his students five extra pages, assuring them he was only "preparing them for college".

"Hey Riku, how do you find wavelength," Sora asked, looking at the strange equation in his book.

"I don't speak Greek, how should I know," Riku replied, scribbling down something onto his own paper. Sora leaned over to see what he was writing.

"I don't think a love letter counts as bookwork, but maybe Mr. Vexen will pass you if you give it to him," Sora squinted, he could not read Riku's messy handwriting. Although, while he and Kairi passed off his chicken scratch as the reason he almost failed first grade, the girls of the school thought it was incredibly romantic calligraphy.

"You think so?" Riku laughed.

"You mean if he bends that way?" Sora said, glancing up at their teacher, who was currently occupied with pacing the rows of students on the other side of the classroom. Sora really hated it when the teacher would pace like that, it was a little unnerving.

"Yeah," Riku drew what looked vaguely like a heart at the bottom of his letter.

"Well, probably not," Sora said.

"Sora, you just killed our joke," Riku complained.

"So"

"Come on, this one was so good, it could have eventually attained in joke status," Riku ranted.

"Well, you could give him the letter and see what he does," Sora put in, and looked at Riku for a reaction.

"No way this if for… ummmm right uhhh, brunette, sitting on the left…" He nudged in the direction of a brunette sitting on the left.

"You should go out with someone that you actually like," Sora said.

"You should go out with Kairi," Riku spoke back quickly.

"Riku… how many times do we have to go over this I don't lik…"

"Are you sure," Riku questioned, raising his eyebrow in a way that made him look incredibly suave, although if it was attempted by anyone else it would make them look incredibly fruity.

"Yes," Sora said, he looked at Kairi. She was pretty…..

"You're blushing you know," Riku said, poking Sora to get him to snap out of what must have been a Kairi trance.

"No I'm not," Sora said.

"You are,"

"I'm not,"

"Would you like to look in a mirror?" Riku questioned.

"What, you carry around a compact like a girl now?" Sora questioned trying to get Riku to forget their conversation, because he knew very well that his cheeks felt warm.

"No," Riku started before turning to the girl behind him, batting his eyelashes a few times and getting her mirror, "thanks," he said to her before turning back to Sora and promptly giving him the mirror.

Sora grudgingly opened it and saw that his cheeks were tinted red. He closed it way harder than necessary and handed it back to the girl that Riku had borrowed it from.

"It's only because…" Sora couldn't think of an excuse.

"So either you're really a perv, or you really like her,"

"No, she just looks really… nice today," Sora said.

"Next you're going to say it's completely and totally platonic right?"

"Well, you said it for me,"

"Just admit it you like Kairi," Riku said a little louder than necessary. People turned in their direction, and Riku stared them all down until they went back to solving their book problems.

Sora looked at Kairi and than in a hushed voice spoke to his friend.

"Yes, I like Kairi," He was surprised that he had admitted it to Riku before he had even admitted it to himself. Riku did these things to you. Unfortunately for Sora, Mr. Vexen was standing right behind them.

"Ohhh, a conversation instead of bookwork…. Well, if it's being said in my class it must not be private," Mr. Vexen cleared his throat in a very obnoxious way that got the entire class's attention, "Class, Sora here, has just declared that he likes Kairi," Mr. Vexen announced. Most of the class smiled, as everyone had seen it coming. Axel and Roxas actually gave each other high fives. Kairi just sat still, her eyes suddenly very wide, staring strait at Sora, who was staring right back at her, blushing so much his ears were probably just as red as his face.

Through all of this, Riku smirked, although he felt bad for his friend, he also felt that his friends should be together… they just should.

a/n hello all, sorry for not updating for so long. I guess I was just lazy. I have a new resolution to update once a week from now on though… so you all can start a party, Nexlei's going to be updating often yay whoopieee hurray yahoooo ummm any other shouts like that.

I liked this chapter for the most part. Especially the last bit. Review, please… Reviewers get nonexistent cookies… don't you guys want nonexistent cookies… review


	6. The Coffee

Me: Lets get this over with

Riku: Nexlei dose not own Kingdom Hearts or any other random references

Me: there actually are a few random references in this chapter

Riku: and I'm in it too

Me: you have about three lines, most of which are very awkward

Riku: I hate you

Me: the readers could care less about this love fest, so here is chapter six

Chapter Six

The Coffee

There was nothing like silence. There never had been and there never would be. In some cases, it was the sweetest thing one got to experience all day. In others, it burned worse than fire in ones ears.

The latter was the kind Kairi was experiencing at this exact moment. No one said a word, and while all eyes were on her, her eyes were only on Sora's.

She wanted to look down, to turn her head and look desperately at some shadowy corner. But for some unknown reason she couldn't, no matter how hard she tried.

Had he really said that? Was it just the cruel teacher playing what he thought was a funny joke? Had she imagined it?

He was making no move to explain anything, he just seemed shocked by the entirety of it. Did he really think that about her? It must be a mistake, they were sworn friends. Or at lest they should be, considering all of the times they had to explain to random a passerby that they were not a couple and would never be a couple.

She wanted to say something, anything, but she couldn't think of what to say, or how to more or less form words in her mouth.

Sora looked uncomfortable, he opened his mouth, as if to say something and than abruptly the bell rung. She had never thought that that computer generated screeching nose sounded better. But with this relief, came another choice. Stay, run, or wait for Sora to do something.

She tried not to think about it to much, so she chose the only natural choice that someone on auto pilot would. Getting out of there as fast as humanly possible. She walked briskly past her classmates whose eyes still burned into her and out the classroom door.

Once out, she headed down the hall in the opposite direction of her next class. There was no way Sora or Riku would think to look for her there, they had more than likely memorized her schedule, and would probably seek her out in the math hallway where her next class was. But she would spend their fifteen minute break, which came after chemistry, hiding in the English section.

It was rather commonly known that English teachers are in no way like math, science or history teachers. They were usually a little more flamboyant. This was easily expressed by their hallway. The corridor in which Kairi found herself this morning was brightly decorated with superfluous autumn leaves in an array of colors. Of course, here and there, there would be a display of a prize student's work (Kairi was positive that Sora had at least three of his assignments hanging in this hallway), but overall the hallway was decorated to suit the teachers tastes. Which were, quite plainly, a little to gaudy.

Kairi leaned against the paper cut out leaves that covered the wall, trying her best to look calm. She wasn't sure what to do. She had never been this utterly shocked in her entire life. Her heart was still racing from the entirety of it, and her knees were likely to give way at any given second. But at least Riku or Sora wouldn't find her here, she was quite positive of this small fact at least.

She was wrong of course, how could she possibly be right on such a strange day as this. Riku turned the corner with a slightly sick looking Sora trailing not to far behind.

She needed to hide, that was for sure. Without a second thought she ducked into the nearest classroom she could find. Of course, she soon noticed that she just so happened to choose the room belonging to a certain Ms. Yuffie.

Ms. Yuffie's head snapped up from whatever she was doing when she heard Kairi close the door behind her and sigh loudly.

"Kairi?" Ms. Yuffie questioned, "What can I help you with," She smiled as brightly as always and put down a bright purple book she was reading. Kairi froze when she realized that there was another person in the room. Although it would make sense that Ms. Yuffie would be there, it was in fact her room. But what could Kairi possibly say to that question.

"Oh… Nothing, so, what are you doing?" She started the conversation nervously. The normally chipper Ms. Yuffie looked at her with a perplexed expression before motioning for her to sit in a chair near her desk.

"I'm reading, my new purple cover edition of The Catcher in the Rye," Ms. Yuffie's smile reappeared as soon as she mentioned her book. It was always good to have a teacher who was really interested in their subject Kairi noted.

"Ah," Kairi said in recognition, a little panicked about the situation that she currently found her self in. Sora, or Mr. Vexen repeated that Sora said that he liked her. She had panicked, hidden in the English hallway, when they searched the hallway for her, she hid in Ms. Yuffie's classroom, which was more than likely a very suspicious act in the eyes of a teacher. Now she had to think of some reason for being in said classroom.

"So, tell me, why are you here," Ms. Yuffie asked. Kairi could feel herself pale. What was she supposed to say, that she was hiding from her best friends because she had just found out something mind bugging and was terrified of meeting him. That was really going to fly, any normal teacher would kick her out and give her detention for interrupting their precious fifteen minute break. "Kairi, you look a little parched, can I offer you some coffee," Had a teacher just said that?

"Ummm, Sure," It was a good conversation piece. Ms. Yuffie got up and poured some already made coffee into a clean mug and handed it to Kairi, eyeing her as warily as a somewhat hyperactive English teacher could.

"It's good isn't it," Ms. Yuffie said, "Special blend, costs me a fortune, but I am a coffee fanatic," Ms. Yuffie stated. Kairi nodded her head and drank. It was as good as coffee could get, which in her opinion was awful.

"Kairi," Ms. Yuffie began again, "May I ask you something,"

"Yes," She said nervously.

"Could you please inform me why you have shown up in my classroom during break, looking as pale as a ghost, and avoiding the subject of why you're hear like the plague," Ms. Yuffie asked.

"Cleaver use of metaphors in that sentence," Kairi said sincerely, if anything could distract an English teacher it was the discussion of metaphors.

"Thank you, but what I really want to know is what on Earth did Sora do to make you scramble into this room like you where hiding from something," Ms. Yuffie fixed herself, "or someone".

Kairi stared blankly at her; it was all she could do to hide the shock that would have been written all over her face had she not forced herself to stare blankly. How on earth could she know that, she wasn't in Chemistry when Mr. Vexen decided to turn his students' lives upside down. Was she following them… no that was silly she had classes to teach.

"What!" She could hold in the surprise no longer.

"Well, well, well, I guess I was right," Ms. Yuffie said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you wouldn't have had a mild panic attack if I was wrong, you would have just stared at me as if I were a lunatic or something," Coming from Ms. Yuffie the words 'as if I were a lunatic' didn't seem so serious.

"Oh," Kairi just shook her head.

"I always knew you two must be having some kind of secret relationship, honestly the way you two look at each other, you are a match made in heaven," Ms. Yuffie had started a strange rant.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when he isn't furiously writing down notes, he enjoys gazing at you, during my class none the less. If he wasn't such a brilliant creative writer, I would probably have to talk to him about it,"

"He really does that?" She asked.

"Oh, well aren't you two in some kind of secret relationship?" Ms. Yuffie questioned.

"No," She curtly replied.

"Well than, I never said that," She smiled. She had finished her coffee, amazingly. "But in any case, could you, please, tell me why you are here," Kairi sighed as Ms. Yuffie said this. She had to tell her something.

"I'm hiding from Sora and Riku," Kairi mumbled, she looked at her coffee mug.

"Why would that be,"

"Mr. Vexen said something…" Kairi said.

"Heh, that old fart would say anything to make his student's uncomfortable, what ever he was criticizing you about I'm sure it isn't that awful," Ms. Yuffie surprised Kairi by saying something like that about another teacher, "But don't tell him I said that," Ms Yuffie said the last part with a little laugh.

"It's not criticism that worries me, he just repeated something Sora said about me aloud to the entire class… and I…" Kairi stopped.

"Was it good or bad," Ms. Yuffie inquired, a small smile on her face. Kairi was surprised how much she sounded like a teenage girl talking to a good friend.

"I suppose it was a complement of sorts," Kairi looked uncomfortable.

"Well, you guys seem to be good friends, a complement shouldn't change anything between you two," Ms. Yuffie said, she got up and poured herself a cup of coffee.

"You're right," Kairi looked up at her teacher.

"You should just try to continue as things were before, I mean, if whatever he said was good, it can only make your relationship stronger right?" Ms. Yuffie made a point, even though she had no idea what Sora had actually said.

"Ok," Kairi smiled a little. Ms. Yuffie than began to, almost impossibly chug the coffee that she had poured for herself. Well, that was just her strange personality, Kairi figured.

"Thanks," Kairi added when it seemed Ms. Yuffie was done with the coffee.

"Anytime," Ms. Yuffie said, and than turned to her book, "I recommend reading this, you know, its Sora's favorite," after saying this Kairi laughed as she wondered if Sora had the purple edition of The Catcher in the Rye just like Ms. Yuffie did.

Than, the bell rung. It made Kairi jump as it echoed through the empty classroom. Ms. Yuffie looked at her apologetically.

"Shouldn't there be students in here?" Kairi questioned as she grabbed her bag off the floor and scrambled to her feet.

"Hmmm, I have this period off," Ms. Yuffie said, "I probably should have warned you,"

"Ah," Kairi said in recognition that she would be late.

"I'll write you a pass," Ms. Yuffie was definitely not like other teachers.

"Thanks," Kairi said and she meant it.

Once Ms. Yuffie finished writing out the pass, she handed it to Kairi who gladly accepted it and walked out of the classroom and down the hall. The math hallway was on the other side of the school.

Kairi had every intention of following Ms. Yuffie's advice. If she could call it that, it was more of an implication, that she shouldn't be avoiding Sora and whatever he had said wouldn't ruin their friendship.

That was what was really worrying Kairi when she thought about it deeply, what would happen to their friendship.

Her thoughts where cut short when she walked into the math classroom. The teacher demanded a pass and she took the one Ms. Yuffie had given her from her pocket and gave it to the teacher.

Math, while sometimes fascinating, was very dull today. She occupied her time mostly staring into space and thinking of ways to start a conversation with Sora the next time she saw him, in the least awkward way possible.

Her next class, History, was spent in much the same way. She wasn't sure to be terrified or relived when the bell ring to signal that lunch had begun. She walked to the eleventh grade courtyard. There were three courtyards in her school, one for teachers, one for the eleventh graders and one for the twelfth graders. This year, Kairi, Riku and Sora had finally been granted access to the eleventh grade courtyard.

It wasn't much, just a green space in the center of the school with a few trees and picnic tables, but the students felt a sense of pride that they had worked their way up for eleven years to earn it. Or maybe that was only the way that Kairi thought about it when she was in a sentimental mood. But anyway, it was theirs to use.

The three would always sit at the table under the tree. Besides from the occasional squirrel knocking acorns on to their food (this happened to Riku who sat directly beneath the squirrels favorite spot on the tree and refused to move because of his view of a girl that he very much like the appearance of).

Kairi walked to her seat and sat down. She took out her lunch, but found she couldn't eat in anxiety of the conversation that was soon to come.

They came from behind her, she didn't see them approaching until they turned with amazing speed and plopped down on the opposite side of the picnic table. She was shocked, not much that they had come, but how incredibly fast they had showed up.

She noticed Sora looked a little off or nervous, and Riku had the air of a concerned friend. It must be awful, Kairi thought, to be stuck in the middle of suck a situation the way Riku was today.

"Hi," She said, someone had to start a conversation, or they would be sitting in silence the whole lunch. That wouldn't make the lunch any better.

"Hi," Sora said a little too fast. Than silence began again. Kairi had to admit, this was the quietest it had ever been between the three of them, even when they were watching movies or in class it was never this quiet. It was beyond unnerving.

"Well…." Riku attempted to start a conversation. Although he hated to admit it, maybe he shouldn't have pushed that out of Sora, things seemed a little awkward now.

"I just… Did you really say that?" Kairi asked looking up at Sora, it was sudden and to the point, the exact opposite of what he expected her to say, if anything.

He looked her in the eyes, the sun was hitting her face through the trees and her hair was drifting slowly in the wind. He smiled.

"Yes,"

Riku raised his eyebrows slightly. He would have predicted Sora to blabber on like an idiot about how Mr. Vexen was actually a lying, evil man. But he had been so blunt. Kairi was staring at him.

"Ok," Kairi said and began eating her lunch. That was all that was said the rest of lunch.

The last bit of the day went by relatively fast. Kairi was soon walking out of the school with Sora after coming from Ms. Yuffie's class.

The hyper teacher had glanced at Kairi several times during the course of the class. Probably wondering if whatever had happened had worked out. Kairi was wondering this herself.

They walked to Sora's car, and soon after they were driving towards Kairi's house.

"I wish I had a car," Kairi mumbled aloud, in a desperate attempt to break the silence.

"Don't we all," Sora said.

"But you have one," Kairi pointed out. Sora smiled, at least they were talking again. But he wondered, all she had said was 'ok'. He admitted something very important, and she said 'ok'. He pushed this from his mind. 'She probably wants to ignore the entire thing and stay friends' he informed himself. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed. He wasn't sure what to think about anything at this point in time. He just wanted to go home, read The Catcher in the Rye, and forget about this wired day.

He pulled up to Kairi's driveway. She gathered her things and was about to leave, when she did something that surprised him. She touched his arm, to get his attention; although it was already directed at her, it always had been.

"You should come inside; you don't have anything to do right?" She said. He stared at her for a few seconds a little confused why she had asked him over, but he supposed that it only backed up his, 'she wants to continue the friendship' theory. He agreed and turned off his car.

The two walked inside of Kairi's house. Sora was not surprised to see that Ariel's toys were strewn across the entrance floor. It must be interesting to live with a little kid, although Kairi assured him it was not always easy.

"Do you want orange juice?" Kairi asked nonchalantly, or as nonchalant as she could.

"Yeah," Sora said and made himself comfortable on the couch in the living room. Sora loved Kairi's house, it felt so lived in, and so comfortable. Despite the fact that it didn't have the single comfiest couch in the world, Kairi's house seemed to vibrate a kind of happiness that could make even the most depressed and out of place person feel completely at home when visiting there.

Kairi walked back into the room with two cups of orange juice which she put on the coffee table before running to the entrance.

"I forgot to take off my shoes," Kairi shook her head. Shaking her feet, she flung her sneakers right off her feet. Although some might have called it ungraceful, Sora admitted to himself that he thought it was incredibly cute.

"What are you staring at?" she laughed.

"You," He started, and even though she seemed shocked that he had said that he continued, "You looked really cute when you were kicking off your shoes back there". Kairi blushed possibly more than she had the entire day. This was significant, because this day had been filled with blushing.

"Oh, that was so, blunt," Kairi couldn't think of what else to say.

"Well, you know what I think about you, so, I supposed I could tell you what I was thinking," Sora said quietly, not entirely sure of her reaction to his complement. Kairi felt her self lose balance, as if her strength had been taken away by his presence. She steadied herself on a nearby chair and looked up at the now bashful boy.

She knew it than, positively. She liked, no maybe even loved him. It was entirely possible she had since the moment she had met him and had not understood it herself until this second. The way he smiled, the way he took time to help her with small things, the way he yelled at the TV when he lost in a video game. Even the way he had gotten popcorn in her hair the other day during their popcorn fight. Everything.

"Kairi," Sora asked, wondering if she was ok, she had been staring into space for a few seconds now, "I'm sorry, if you don't want me to say things like that, I won't,"

"I… no, it's not that," She said. She wasn't going to tell him just yet. Well she couldn't tell him just yet.

Kairi walked across the room and sat down next to Sora, closer than usual Sora noticed. But he could be imagining it, he told himself. He really didn't know.

a/n hello people. How are you? You know when you're writing something and you think of all of these brilliant things to put in the authors note, and than when you get to writing it… nothing. That seems to be happening to me now. So I suppose I will talk about the chapter

I thought it was ok, not as funny as it could have been. I love writing Ms. Yuffie.

Don't worry; the next chapter will be out soon. I have it all planned; now all I have to do is type it all out and edit.

If anyone has any questions about the story feel free to review, I reply to questions. Also, I love constructive criticism, so please be a critic, that's what the review button is for. Anyway, reviewers, as always get nonexistent cookies. Yay.


	7. Ice Cream

Me: Hello

Riku: she is sorry for not updating for a month

Me: well it wasn't really a month

Riku: Yes it was

Me: No one asked you're opinion

Riku: Than why did you type it

Me: because you're going to say the disclaimer

Riku: how is that relevant?

Me: I don't know

Riku: Nexlei does not own Kingdom Hears or any other random references

I scream you scream

We all scream for

Ice Cream

'Homework is an evil entity. That is the mantra of schoolchildren across the globe. It is common knowledge, and even widely accepted by studies done at prestigious universities,' Kairi stifled a laugh as she thought the last part, it was probably incorrect on many levels. But it was definitely fun to think. 'Well, I suppose there are times when homework was bearable' she added as an afterthought glancing up at her surroundings from a very large chemistry book.

Homework was a nice reason to be sitting on opposite ends, of the couch from Sora. Although, it seemed every passing second caused the center of the couch to shrink and pull her closer to her dear friend. When they had first sat down, she had stupidly positioned herself awkwardly close to him… close enough to lean her head on his shoulder. Her heart was beating so fast it almost hurt. That couldn't be a good sign.

So she suggested homework, and they both got up to grab their books. When they sat back down again, she conveniently sat far on the other side… not the smoothest of actions, and it didn't go unnoticed, but she didn't feel like she was about to have heart failure anymore.

She glanced over at Sora, unwillingly of course. He was sitting comfily on the other end of the couch with a copy of Hamlet glued to his hands. His head tilted over the book, just slightly enough so the small amount of hair that didn't manage to be completely vertical, fell in front of his eyes. She continued to watch him, every now and than he would squint his eyes perplexed at something someone said in the Shakespearian play. She couldn't help laughing… a little louder than she had originally hoped.

"What's so funny?" He looked up at her, biting his lip.

"Your face is so silly" She replied still laughing. Although, in all truth, it was more of a giggle, she was giggling at how blatantly adorable he was. That scared her.

"Dost thou not like my face?" Sora attempted to speak in Elizabethan English. Too much Shakespeare for his own good, Kairi knew this was a fact. "But, what's so funny about my face?"

"Hmmm nothing"

"Sure," Sora pretended to have a busied ego. It would be nice, he thought, to know what she was laughing at.

"Lazy bum… I was laughing at your face," Kairi said.

"Yes I know…" He pouted, scrunching his nose, "You just informed me about three sec…"

"I mean, the funny faces you were making," Kairi cleared it up, shaking her head.

"I made a funny face…" Sora looked down to his book, almost in recognition, "Oh… it's because I'm reading Hamlet".

"Ok…" Kairi didn't get it. Kairi didn't get Shakespeare in general.

"Well, you see," He paused, knowing that Kairi didn't like Hamlet much, "He pretty much called his girlfriend a whore, and told her to go to a nunnery,"

"Really?" Kairi was actually a little surprised.

"Yeah," Sora nodded his head.

"But that wasn't really a haha 'Hamlet's girlfriend was just called a whore' face,"

"It took me a minute to actually comprehend that he was saying this to the girl whom he had, so admirably, written a love letter to,"

"So he's a player?" Kairi laughed.

"No, he's a whiney emo kid who can't seem to make up his mind," Sora informed her, seemingly proud of himself that he understood the complex plot structure. Kairi changed the subject. She had decided that she wasn't going to attempt to scratch the surface of what Sora had just told her.

"I thought you were reading The Cather in the Rye," Kairi said.

"I am, this is a history assignment," Sora smiled, "the point of which is to get us interested in Shakespeare… some teachers never get it," Sora spoke the truth. Shakespeare was something that could be loved much more if it was read or seen for pleasure, not to do long overdone book projects.

"Good thing Riku isn't here, he would have made some kind of awful comment about Hamlet's girlfriend" Kairi laughed, looking over at Sora, he looked a spacey, "Um Sora, this is the part where you laugh at Riku".

"Oh, sorry," Sora looked up at her, apologetically.

"You space out too much," Kairi shook her head.

"Yeah, I do," Sora smiled as if he were proud.

Kairi was waiting for him to deny it, or at least use some kind of comeback but he didn't. So she changed the subject to one of her favorite topics.

"And what is Riku doing tonight?" Kairi laughed. They had this conversation almost every time that Riku wasn't around.

"You mean who, right?" Sora shot back customarily. Kairi laughed, Riku was an amazing friend, but he flaunted his beauty on too many girls to count. And they all fell for it.

"Yeah,"

"The brunette in chemistry," Sora said.

"Does he like her?" Kairi already knew the answer.

"Certain parts of her, yes, very much,"

"You know what I think of Riku," Kairi asked Sora rhetorically.

"Ummm you think he's a sexy beast?" Sora asked. Kairi looked at him eyes wide. She slid across the couch, bumping into him softly before slapping him upside the head.

"No,"

"Than what, Kairi dearest, do you think of Riku?" Sora added in the Kairi dearest for a laugh… well he wanted to think that and more importantly he wanted her to think that.

"I think he's afraid of commitment," Kairi said seriously.

"Commitment is very scary," Sora put in Riku's defense.

"Marriage yes… but dating not really,"

"Maybe you should ask Riku," Sora suggested a funny smile spreading across his lips.

"Maybe I should," Kairi said, challenging his idea, but having no real intention of doing so. Sora whipped out his cell phone and half a second later, Riku's face flashed on the screen and he tossed the phone to Kairi.

"You didn't…" She stared at him her jaw dropped a little, "You know he hates being interrupted when he's on a date".

"Which is why that is always my favorite time to call him," He smirked.

"Hello," Riku's voice sounded on the phone, she put it on speaker phone.

"Hi Riku," Kairi said.

"Ummm, what's up…," Riku's voice trailed off, "I can't really talk too long".

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You're on a date. But I have an important question to ask you".

"You're with Sora aren't you?" Riku asked.

"Yes," Kairi answered not seeing any relevance in this, "How did you know?"

"Sora only calls when he wants to do something, or when he knows I'm on a date"

"Right, well I have a reason to call you," Kairi laughed into the phone, the reason seeming more and more ridiculous by the second.

"And that is?"

"Are you afraid of commitment?" Kairi asked. The line went silent for a moment.

"Not that I know of," His suave voice sounded on the other side of the phone, "Kairi that was a really stupid question".

"Yeah," She said.

"Hold on…" Riku said, his voice sounding a little different this time. A girl's giggles could be heard.

"Poor girl," Kairi mumbled to Sora.

"What is Riku doing to her," Sora asked as the giggles abruptly stopped, and a long silence followed.

"Ok, I'm here," Riku said.

"Next time you do that, just hang up, ok" Sora shouted into the phone.

"Someone's a little grouchy today," Riku mumbled.

"Well that's all I wanted to ask," Kairi said.

"Well, congratulations on making me go four minutes over my cell phone limit," Riku said, his pout was evident in his voice.

"Honestly Riku, half of that time was spent, tickling, making out with or harassing the brunette," Sora said.

"Or doing other things"

"Bye Riku," Kairi refused to continue the conversation.

"Oh and Kairi?" Riku asked, "You and Sora are alone right?"

"Yeah…"

"Go easy on him, it's his first time," Riku said, this was more than likely his way of getting back at Sora for yelling, Kairi turned a red and was about to retort when the line went dead. Sora looked mortified.

"Just what does he think we are doing?" He said.

"Playing chess?" Kairi suggested.

"Hahaha lets go with that one," Sora agreed, his eyes darting away from Kairi.

Kairi looked up at the clock. It was already five, she was getting hungry.

"You staying for dinner?" Kairi asked.

"Yeah," Sora said.

"Pizza ok?" Everyone loved pizza, "My parents aren't coming back until later".

"Yeah," Sora said again.

"I'm going to run upstairs, I left the menu with the number for delivery in my room,"

Sora nodded his head and Kairi stood up from the couch, and hopped across the room to the staircase. She walked up the stairs, and into her room, digging around the mess her sister had made, looking for the small paper menu.

Sora sat on the couch downstairs, thinking of ways to get back at Riku for what he said. Nothing was immediately coming to mind. He heard Kairi shuffling around her room upstairs, looking for the menu.

He sat there on the couch, alone, for the better part of five minutes, before heading upstairs to see what was taking Kairi so long.

Being the creative genius he was, he imagined she had been swallowed up by the mess that was her room. Maybe he could jump in and save her from the monstrous crayons left on the floor by her little sister.

Or maybe he was just insane. Insane for his ideas, or insane for Kairi. He felt a little sick thinking about the last part. The day had been odd and there were no signs that it was going to get any more normal. At this point, nothing could possibly happen to make this day be reasonably close to normal.

He had climbed the stairs and made the few paces down the hallway required to reach Kairi's room. The door was open, so he walked right in.

There she was, kneeling on the ground next to a pile of old papers that looked like they hadn't been touched in weeks. She was flipping through them furiously with a look of desperation. She had not noticed he had entered the room until he plopped himself down on the floor next to her.

"Can't find it?" He already knew, but asking was fun anyway.

"What was your first clue Sherlock?" Kairi sighed. She rolled her eyes and turned away from her stack of papers to look through another that was nearby.

Sora glanced around the room. Everything seemed to be exactly the way it always was, his eyes ran across the pictures of her, Riku and himself and followed them until they reached her closet.

Something was different. Normally the door was closed, hiding her wardrobe from view. Sora had no idea why it was always shut he hadn't noticed that it always had been, until this very moment when he saw that it was open. Looking in his eyes landed on something. It was blue, light, swishy looking and the exact opposite of anything that Kairi had ever worn.

He stared at it for a moment. He was a little dumbstruck that she even owned something like this. It was so… girly, soft, feminine. Not to say that Kairi was lacking in the feminine department, Sora knew this much. Even when she only wore a frumpy sweatshirt, she was a vision to behold.

Why did she have this? She couldn't wear it to homecoming, it was to casual. She didn't wear dresses anywhere else, and it couldn't be for school.

Maybe he was looking too deep into things. He did that often, he realized. He should just ask her.

"Ok…"

"Found it!" She yelled in triumph, as she pulled out a pamphlet with a picture of a pizza on the cover.

"Good, I'm really hungry," Sora said. He wouldn't ask her now. She smiled and dialed the number on her cell phone. Just like Kairi to be too lazy to find the house phone.

After a minute on the phone, she hung up grinning.

"They said it should be a half an hour," Kairi said.

"And that makes you happy why?"

"…it's just enough time to spoil our dinner with ice cream" Kairi said in a quick tone, as if saying it fast would suddenly cut out the unhealthiness that was spoiling dinner with ice cream.

"You're amazing," Sora grinned.

"Why thank you," Kairi laughed, and the two walked out of her room and down the stairs to the kitchen.

Kairi grabbed two bowls down from a cabinet and set them on the counter. Sora had already gotten out the ice cream and whipped cream at this time.

"Yes, Chocolate, good choice," Kairi beamed.

"You mean to tell me, there are other flavors?" Sora scooped two perfectly round scoops of chocolate ice cream into Kairi's bowl, and than two into his.

"Of course not," Kairi played along, smiling. She added some whipped cream and admired her sundae, "Needs fudge," She added after a moment's deliberation.

"You're right," Sora said and he dashed across Kairi's kitchen and helped himself to the fudge as if he had lived there his entire life.

"I love how you're so comfortable with taking food from my fridge," Kairi laughed.

"I love how you're so comfortable getting comfortable on my couch," Sora said. It was true, Kairi had proclaimed Sora's famously comfy couch as her true home many times.

"That's true, and I'm very proud," Kairi poured fudge over her ice cream and sat down at the table. Sora was right behind her, and sat in the chair next to her.

It was nice, Kairi noticed, that for the last few minutes the awkwardness brought on by the events earlier that day had disappeared.

It is still just Sora, Kairi figured. No matter where they stood in a relationship, he was still Sora and she was still Kairi, and they were still best friends. That couldn't change.

She had to admit though, she did like liking him. If that had an ounce of sense to it. Now that she had had that epiphany, she was at least free to admit to herself that she enjoyed watching him read, or laugh, or make ice cream sundaes. She didn't have to lie to herself that she felt certain giddiness in his company or that when he was near she feared her heart was beating so fast that she would die.

She should tell him. She knew it wasn't fair, letting him think she was so indifferent to him. But she couldn't say the right words. Sure, she could laugh, joke, annoy or start meaningless conversations with him. But she couldn't quite get herself to admit it yet. After all she had only just admitted it to herself a few hours ago.

She looked at Sora, he had finished his ice cream, and was leaning back in the chair looking very happy with the world. She laughed when she saw his nose.

"What's so funny?" He asked.

"Your face," She said.

"Not this one again," Sora almost sighed, but he couldn't help himself smiling.

"Yeah, sorry Sora,"

"What's wrong with my face now," Sora asked. He looked thoroughly amused at their conversation.

"You somehow managed to get whipped cream on your nose," Kairi pointed.

"Brilliant aren't I?" He asked.

"In a messy kind of way," Kairi laughed. Sora reached for a napkin, but Kairi caught his hand, "I'll get it," She surprised herself.

She dropped his hand, and picked up the napkin that he had been reaching for. She gently reached up and dabbed his nose with it. He smiled slightly and crossed his eyes as if to follow her hand.

"You're too cute," Kairi said just above a whisper, he heard her. It was a few seconds later when she noticed his blue eyes staring intently at her that she computed that one of her thoughts had been said aloud. She froze, not knowing what to do. She dabbed away the whipped cream, and dropped the napkin onto the table.

He than did something that surprised her. He reached over and pulled her into a soft hug. She couldn't lie to herself and say she wasn't positively glowing at the fact he had just placed his arms so nicely around her. Something about it felt right.

She slowly wrapped her arms around him, returning the hug. She smiled, and he held her close.

"Thanks Kairi," He said. Her smile widened at hearing his voice in her ear.

A/n yeah, I know this chapter is short. And I know this is also about a month late. But I have a good excuse. The Twilight series. Every girl who had read the books is nodding their head in understanding right now. I just know it. Well, I should cut this short before I go on a rant about what exactly is so amazing about the Twilight series (Edward Cullen). The next chapter should be up soon.

Another note, to those who didn't get the Hamlet reference… the part referred to was right after the "to be or not to be" monologue. Hamlet was talking to Ophelia about how he never loved her. He said something along the lines of "Get thee to a nunnery; why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners". If you haven't read or seen Hamlet and would like to know what on earth I am rambling about, do tell me and I would be very happy to explain. Lucky readers caught Nexlei on a Shakespeare day. Anyway Review!!!


	8. Something Like That

Me: Queue the dramatic entrance music

Riku: You don't get a dramatic entrance; this is a text based website, no special effects or the works

Me: I'll just have my human slave hum than

Riku: Who's your human slave?

Me: You of course

Riku: Dammit

Me: Hum

Riku: Hmmmmmhmmmmhmmmm

Me: Hurray

Riku: Nexlei does not own Kingdom Hearts or any other random references

Chapter Eight

Something Like That

Life was good when spent around friends. Even bossy, nosy as anything, playboy friends. This was a fact that Sora had accepted when he was very young. Second grade maybe. Before second grade, of course, was a totally different story.

The two boys were currently sitting in class having a conversation. Of course it was math. Math was the only class where it was feasible to have such a potentially loud conversation without being interrupted by put out teachers with scowls on their faces.

Their math teacher was an older man, the students were not sure if he was partially deaf or if he was just completely oblivious to his surroundings. The man would not notice if world war three began, much less if someone threw a paper airplane right over his head.

Therefore it was entirely logical that the two boys have their conversation in math class. It was only a bonus that Kairi was not there.

"And than what happened?" Sora's best friend inquired excitedly. Though excitedly for Riku was a bit different than what one would expect. He was never into bouncing off the walls or doing cartwheels, but he was grinning just a little and his eyebrows had raised a fraction.

"Than the doorbell rang and we had to get the pizza," Sora said.

"So it was like on of those pizza boy threesome porno videos?" Riku asked, there were quite a few stares from their surrounding classmates at this point, Riku didn't care. Sora on the other hand felt his face go hot.

"Of course not," He wanted to yell, but the inside voice concept taught frequently in kindergarten prevented this from happening, so it was a normal voice for Sora.

"Oh, well, maybe that's better as it was your first time and all…" Riku pointed out, he shook his head.

"Riku," Sora stared at him menacingly as the stairs continued and a girl with light brown hair giggled at the last comment. Maturity was hard to find, even among upperclassmen.

"Sorry," The silver haired boy choked, attempting not to laugh too loud, "So what happened?"

"Nothing," Sora stated plainly, wanting to end the conversation and wondering what had possessed him to start it in the first place. Besides the fact that Riku was one of his best friends, he was not always the easiest to talk to. He always answered either with a joke, or something so blunt and obvious that it was very painful for Sora to admit that he had overlooked it. Though, given a choice, he would talk to Riku. He would trust Riku with anything and Riku trusted him just as much. Sora knew that if Riku was ever serious about a girl, he would talk to Sora, fat chance that that would happen any time soon.

"Nothing?" He was a little surprised.

"We ate the pizza and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon very awkwardly on opposite ends of the couch," Sora frowned as he said this.

"Only you Sora," Riku shook his head.

"What you have done?" Sora should not have asked that, but it was better to get the spotlight off him for a moment. It was starting to burn his eyes.

"What wouldn't I have done… if it had been anyone but Kairi," He paused dramatically before adding the last part. Sora stared blankly at his friend not finding it funny.

"You are afraid of commitment though," Sora pointed out bluntly.

"And so are you," Riku put in.

"No I'm not,"

"Than why did it take a teacher to overhear you and announce it to the entire class for you to confess that you love her," Riku said.

"Love?" Sora stared with fear in his eyes, "And besides, dummy, the teacher overheard the moment I figured it out myself".

"Give me a break Sora, you've loved her since whatever sandbox you two met in," Riku said.

"It was a very nice sandbox," Sora stated.

"The sandbox of love,"

"If you say that again you will…" Sora paused.

"Can't think of a threat?" Riku asked.

"No, they all just seem a little too drastic… and messy," Sora laughed.

"Wouldn't have them any other way," Riku put in.

"I know,"

"So back to the sandbox of…" Riku was about to finish his sentence when Sora kicked his toes under the desk. Riku wasn't one to wince, but it did hurt.

"Why didn't you finish your sentence Riku?" Sora asked, pretending to be unaware.

"Because you kicked me dumbass,"

"Oh," Sora smiled.

"Anyway, you should ask Kairi out on a date," Riku stated.

"A date?" Sora asked.

"It's this thing where you go with another person to a movie or somewhere nice…,"

"Shut up," Sora stated.

"Of course," Riku said obeying, "But you need to ask her out soon,"

"Why?" Sora asked.

"Because she likes you, and when a girl likes you and you like her if you don't ask her out on a date than she will assume that you don't like her and that she is fat and than she will get an eating disorder," Riku explained, leave it to Riku to put sense into dating.

"So that's what you've been doing these past three years, stopping the girls in our school from getting eating disorders?" Sora wanted to laugh.

"I am a very overworked soul, but yes, it is my job in life," Riku smirked.

"Yeah… overworked,"

"I am"

"Are you even sure she likes me? All she did was call me cute,"

"Ask her out," Riku put in quickly.

"I think we should end this conversation," Sora said quietly.

"Why is that?" Riku asked.

"Well, one, half the class is staring at us," Sora started, but was interrupted.

"And the teacher?" Riku questioned.

"Still doodling on the board," Sora stated, although he knew that the teachers bad hand writing must have had mathematical meaning behind it. Somewhere.

"Expected nothing less," He said, "What's number two?"

"We sound like a bunch of overexcited schoolgirls," Sora pointed out, referring to the topic of dating.

"Schoolgirls?"

"Should have known better than to mention your favorite word,"

"I think I'm allowed to like the word, I am saving them from bulimia" Riku pointed out, a smile appearing on his face, informing Sora that he was thinking of his previous date.

"Keep doing that Riku," Sora laughed at his friend.

Looking down at his blank notebook page, he wrote the date, than copied down what sense he could make of the teachers handwriting. Truth be told, Kairi was in a higher level math than he was. She was a math and science type and he was an English type. Maybe he would be a writer when he got older. Anything but an accountant.

Kairi had also been brilliant enough to be placed in honors English. How she kept up so well with all of the work he didn't know. "Smart people chemistry" as Riku liked to say was killing him.

Class was over not to soon after Sora and Riku's conversation. Sora walked to Ms. Yuffie's class. The English hallway was as flamboyant as ever, if not slightly blinding. It left the students wodering if they had wandered their way into Oz.

He was the first to arrive in class, followed closely by Riku. Ms. Yuffie was eying him, as if looking for something new. He wasn't sure what to think, so he accredited it to her strange personality and apparent coffee addiction. Kairi waked into the classroom soon after.

"Hey Kairi," Riku spoke first. He knew Sora well enough to know that he probably had to have the first words if he wanted there to be much conversation at all.

"Hi Riku, hi Sora," Kairi smiled brightly at both boys.

"Hi Kairi… your hair looks… red today………"

"Sora you are a moron," Riku said. Kairi laughed.

"Yeah, I washed out the blue dye this morning," Sarcasm of course.

"Blue dye… oh ha ha ha," His laugh was forced and everyone in the school heard it.

"Isn't she a comedy genius?" Riku stated.

"Of course I am," Kairi laughed nervously.

"Yeah…" Sora trailed off. Why did he start talking without having anything to say? Why was Kairi staring at him? Was he supposed to be talking now? Sora didn't know what to say, so he said the first thing that came to mind, "It's really cool, how you can look so nice without wearing gallons of make up,". Riku stared at Sora, wondering what to do with his very pathetic friend.

"You think so?" Kairi laughed, not really sure what to say to the complement.

"Class," And extremely high pitched voice boomed from the other side of the room, "Well, Sora, Riku and Kairi… the bell rang five minutes ago, so feel free to sit, you know, so class can start," Though some teachers saying this would have sounded menacing, Ms. Yuffie said it in a light-hearted way, as if it were a casual comment to a friend.

Sora, Riku and Kairi took their seats in their respective places. Ms. Yuffie began a discussion about the new book that they would be starting.

The teacher passed out the books, and the class was told to read the first chapter to themselves. Sora finished first in the class. He was a very fast reader and had already read the book, To Kill a Mockingbird.

"Sora, have you read this before?" Kairi whispered to him when she had finished the first chapter.

"Yeah ages ago," Sora stated.

"Is it good?" She asked.

"It's pretty cool, lots of symbolism and lessons to be learned,"

"Oh," Kairi almost sighed, as interesting as symbolism and lessons to be learned were, they always meant wordy essays. No matter how different their teacher might be, she would not be able to resist giving them an essay on the themes of a book like this.

The class continued, Ms. Yuffie had them write down what they thought the book was going to be about, and hand it in to her. Predictions were always fun for a teacher to look at. Not only were they sometimes outrageous, from her more creative students, but she could always see exactly which students had already read the book.

Class ended just a few minutes after everyone had turned in their prediction. Ms. Yuffie assigned a few chapters to read that night and everyone was dismissed.

"So Riku what do you think will happen in the book?" Kairi asked as they were headed outside.

"I think the people in the book are going to kill mockingbirds," Riku said after a moment of seemingly thoughtful contemplation.

"How did he get into honors English?" Kairi whispered to Sora jokingly, she already knew the answer.

"He only pretends to be stupid," Sora stated. It was true, Riku, though not very blatant about it, was a strait A student.

"Talking about me?" He questioned.

"Of course,"

"What aspect of my perfection are you discussing?" Riku asked.

"How you manage to get such great grades while you act like a total dimwit," Sora told him.

"You can always tell the good teachers from the bad one's that way," Riku stated.

"What?" Kairi asked, perplexed.

"The good ones give me my A with a smile, the bad ones watch me to see if I cheat," Riku said.

"I get it, so the good teachers can tell how smart you are, because they know you and the bad one's only notice your little charade," Kairi said.

"I wouldn't say charade," Riku pointed out.

"Why not?"

"I act like this at home too," Riku said.

"Sure Riku," Sora laughed. They had reached their cars. He and Riku had parked next to each other that morning.

"See you guys later," Riku said, opening his car door and throwing his bag onto the back seat without much care.

"See you," Kairi laughed, and got into the passengers seat of Sora's car.

This was when the seriousness of the situation dawned on Sora for the first time. He was going to be along with Kairi, all the five minutes to her house. Five minutes was a long time. Of course, he had the same problem the day before too.

He took a deep breath and got into the car. Through all of his awkward nervousness he had to admit he liked being in her presence. He liked it a lot.

"It's so good to be going home," Kairi stated. Sora nodded. It was good to be going home. Though he didn't really feel like going home. Sure he had a comfy couch, but he felt like being around people. Maybe he would get ice cream.

"Ehh, maybe," Sora replied.

"I'm going to sleep as soon as I climb up those evil stairs," Kairi said smiling at the thought of sleep.

"Since when are you're stairs evil?" He asked.

"Since forever," Kairi laughed.

"Oh," He said. Two and a half minutes left. This was halfway.

"So, what's new?" Kairi asked. Sora tried to no avail to think of something witty to say to this question.

"Apparently I'm cute," Sora whispered, just a little louder than he intended.

"You are," Kairi said, "With or without ice cream,"

"Really?" Sora said.

"Yeah," Kairi said, "Glad that's been clarified,"

"Clarified…"

"When you make something clear" Kairi said.

"I guess I should clarify something too," Sora pulled into Kari's driveway. He looked her way, wondering in the back of his mind what was possessing him and giving him so much confidence, "You are absolutely gorgeous, beautiful, every synonym of pretty,"

Kairi's eyes widened a little. It wasn't every day that someone got that kind of complement. She stared at Sora, he stared at her. She was at a loss for words.

"Sora…" She wasn't sure what to say so she stopped her sentence and grabbed her bag, "There is no way you are planning on going back to your stupid huge house right?" She knew him too well.

"Of course not,"

"Then you're definitely staying here right?" She asked.

"Yeah," He replied.

"Good," She opened her front door and together they walked in. Kairi closed the door behind them and turned around, looking at the menacing stairs and knowing it wouldn't be nice to sleep while Sora was over anyway. "Let's go to the backyard," She stated. He just nodded and followed the red head through her house and out the back through a sliding door in the kitchen.

"It's a nice day," Sora pointed out. They had a lot of good weather where they lived, but this day suddenly seemed a bit brighter.

"I love nice days," She said.

They lay down on the grass in her back yard. The yard was pretty large and surrounded by a hedge. Kairi's mother had a garden closer to the house where she grew carrots, tomatoes and oranges. Riku was known to steal the oranges when they became ripe. But it was only fair as Sora and Kari always stole his chocolate.

"Remember when we were younger, we used to lie out here like this?" Sora asked.

"How could I forget," She laughed.

"Naming the shapes of each of the clouds was so much more fun when you didn't have to do homework after," Sora pointed out.

"Yeah,"

"Tired?" He asked.

"More than you know,"

"You can sleep, I'll leave," He pointed out.

"Don't be stupid," She said. He looked away from the sky and to Kairi.

"I'm not being stupid,"

"Don't go home," She said firmly.

"But you're tired," He said.

"You're my best friend, you don't need to leave because I'm tired," She said, "You can throw a party if I fall asleep, as long as Riku limits it to three girls…"

"Three seriously…"

"Sora, I'm a comedy genius, just laugh,"

"Ok, do you want to go inside?" He asked her, she shook her head, more than likely getting grass in her hair.

"It's nice out here,"

"Ok,"

The two didn't move from where they were lying, Kairi did fall asleep, and in the silence, or semi silence of outside, Sora did too.

It was around five o'clock when he woke up. The sky was just starting to dim when Sora opened his eyes and vaguely wondered where he was. It of course, hit him that he was in Kairi's back yard a few moments later and he turned his head towards the red head who was still sound asleep in the grass. He should probably wake her up, he knew. It would be better to get inside before all of the bugs came out and ate them alive.

He gently reached over to tap her shoulder, hesitating a bit at first and fighting back the burn in his cheeks.

"Kairi… wake up" He called. She stirred a little and opened her eyes.

"Hey Sora," She yawned, closing her eyes again in a sleepy stupor. Rest was so sweet.

"So, it's going to get dark soon, so maybe we should go inside," Sora told the girl. She was still wandering aimlessly between sleep and consciousness.

"M'kay," She whispered and lifted her hand, "Help me get up," Sora nodded andgot up himself before taking her hand and helping her up.

"Sleeping in the grass is fun," Sora commented smiling to himself.

"Yeah," Kairi said, they walked together up the stairs, onto the porch and into the kitchen.

"So are you going to go back to sleep now?" Sora asked Kairi, who seemed to be a little more awake than she had a few minutes ago.

"I don't think so," She sighed frowning a little.

"Sorry for waking you," He said.

"No it's a good thing you were here or I would have slept through the entire night and neglected my homework," Kairi laughed.

"Like you couldn't BS it in homeroom,"

"Yeah well, it's easier this way," Kairi laughed, she was always amazing at doing things last minute. The English project they had a few weeks ago for instance, was completed the night before, at eleven o'clock.

"Yeah of course," Sora agreed.

"Hmmm, I should probably take all of this stuff upstairs before my sister gets here," Kairi nodded to her discarded bag and two projects she had to present earlier that day. She lifted her excruciatingly heavy bag with difficulty. It was almost as if all of the teachers planned to assign homework from the heaviest books on the same day.

"I'll help," Sora volunteered, grabbing her bag, "You just get… those," He pointed to an elaborate three dimensional Lewis structure that Kairi had probably put together last night. If he didn't know her so well, he would have thought she spent weeks on it.

"Thanks," She said and grabbed the light project, and turned to lead the way to up the stairs and to her room.

"Did you put bricks in here?" He asked as they walked up the stairs. She laughed.

"Don't complain about something you volunteered to do," She scolded and continued to laugh.

"But seriously, how many books did you bring?"

"I think five text books and three notebooks," She said.

"That is so evil," Sora commented. Kairi shook her head. They reached the top of the stairs and trudged to Kairi's room. Sora reached out and opened the door for Kairi who's hands were both occupied with the project she was carrying, she stumbled into the room and put it down onto her desk than let out a loud sigh.

Sora put her bag down and sat on her desk chair, feigning exhaustion. Kairi fell on her bed, the door to her closet was open, she noticed, as she had left it this morning. She hoped Sora would pay no attention to the mess that was her pile of shoes at the bottom of her closet.

It was a little ridiculous, but usually when she came up to her room, she was too tired to take her shoes off in the conventional way. So she settled for kicking them sharply and letting them fly into an unorganized pile on her closet floor.

Of course it always made life a little more interesting when a shoe would leave a dent in the back wall of her closet.

Looking over at Sora, she remembered the events of a few hours ago. So she had called him cute. The inner debate was starting again. The events of the night before were running through her mind as well. Of course the events would be absolutely meaningless and more than likely not registered under the category of "events" for someone, anyone else. As Riku would say, rather bluntly, nothing happened.

She had hated the way the night had gone after the pizza guy came. She had been so close, to saying what was suddenly, spontaneously on her mind. But the pizza guy had decided to make his stupid, freakishly skinny, presence known. She doubted that she would ever eat pizza again.

But those spontaneous thoughts floating through her mind the previous night were still there on this lovely day. She just could not grasp the ability to say them.

It was always hard to admit that you were madly in love with your best friend. Though an outsider would see no reason for her hesitation at this sudden discovery, as she had no fear of rejection. She already knew he liked her. But some part of her was still mortally terrified of saying a word about it to him.

What would happen after that? Would they kiss? It was hard to admit to her self, but she did like that idea an awful lot more than she should. She glanced over at his eyes and wondered if it was possible for them to be so blue? She didn't think anyone could even dream to achieve that color blue except for him.

She noticed, suddenly after that observation, that his eyes were staring at the one thing she hoped they would avoid. Her stupid closet.

"Don't mind my closet," She jumped up and went to close the door.

"Wait," He exclaimed suddenly, his eyes caught on an object.

"What?" She asked.

"What's that?" he asked and pointed to her blue dress. Her eyes widened and she just smiled.

"Nothing, a dress," She said.

"Of course," He stated, "It's nice,"

"Why thank you," She replied to his complement.

"I didn't think you ever wore dresses," He commented and looked up at Kairi.

"I just never have anywhere to wear it,"

"Than why did you buy it," He asked.

"Because I liked it," She replied.

"Than you should wear it" He told her.

"I told you I never have anywhere to wear it," She stated.

"You can wear it now" He said. This part of the conversation must have been completed on auto pilot as Sora would never have usually said that. Asking a girl to wear a certain dress. Asking Kairi to wear a certain dress. What was wrong with him.

"Now"

"I mean…" He was starting to get flustered as he realized the implications of what he had just said.

"Really, just for no reason?" She asked.

"Well…" He stumbled on his words, "Not for no reason, I mean… you like the dress right and it's nice and all and…"

"Get out,"

"I'm sorry, I was only…"

"I mean so I can change" She smiled at him. This was rather bazaar, wearing a dress just because. She doubted Sora had asked her to wear it for any perverted reason. He wasn't that kind of person, even if he did like her.

"Oh… Really?" He asked, very surprised by her sudden decision.

"Yeah," She said.

"Ok," He nodded and exited the room. Kairi quickly changed into the light blue dress, making sure it wasn't on backwards in the mirror.

Last year's homecoming, she had put on her dress, and worn it all the way down the stairs before realizing that it was on backwards. She was able to quickly retreat to her room before anyone but her little sister saw. Her sister, though very young, had known enough to laugh.

She smiled at herself in the mirror. It was not on backwards. That was always a good sign. Turning away from the mirror, she opened the door.

"If you laugh at me…" She didn't finish her sentence. Sora was already staring at her. She couldn't read what he was thinking.

"…Amazing," He spoke out before his mind could edit the, drabble, that had been running through his head. This had been happening all too often lately and he had to do something about it soon. It was starting to be a little silly.

"Far from," She replied, "It wasn't even on sale".

"No," He replied, "Kairi… you look so…" He didn't finish as she grabbed his hand and led him down the stairs.

"Let's go to the living room," Kairi said. Her knees were shaking as she held his hand, part leading and part pulling him behind her. He must have noticed, when she looked at him he looked a little redder than normal. She probably did too. She had intended to add a reason for why they were to go to the living room, but her mind had stopped working. It was fortunate that his had too as he would have thought it strange to be dragged somewhere without a reason.

They got down to the living room, Sora looked away from Kairi, at a flower vase on a nearby table. He seemed to be concentrating very hard on keeping himself from bluntly staring, before loosing the battle. Kairi started to panic.

"Well, it's a nice dress and all… I'll go change," She announced to him.

"No,"

"Why not?" She asked.

"Why not, not," Sora said.

"That doesn't make any sense," She told him, nervously.

"I mean why not, not change," Sora said.

"Well, for one…,"

"I mean… you look nice, so uhhhhm," Sora wasn't exactly sure how to fraise something like this without sounding like Riku. So he just stopped.

Kairi looked at him with indecision in her eyes. Sora was always so brilliant at expressing himself, but here he stood, to confused to form a simple sentence. He bit his lip and his eyes shifted to the left to look at some object that caught his attention. Possibly the flower vase again. Or maybe to just look away. Kairi knew she looked away when she was embarrassed.

It was hard not to, when the spotlight was on her and she were being scrutinized by someone or other about something she was clearly ashamed of. Diverting her eyes was a means to escape at least the questioning glares of others. Not that it really did much good in the end, but it was definitely an instinct of humiliation.

She hadn't meant to embarrass Sora. She shouldn't have asked him why he didn't want her to change, the answer, she saw, was now rather obvious. He liked her. He was a sixteen year old boy and she was wearing a cute dress. It made much more sense to her once she did the basic math.

"Well…" He started to speak again.

"Ok, I won't change," She cut him off before he was forced to become even more flustered than he already was. Though she had to admit she enjoyed seeing him that way. If he wasn't already handsome, he looked so much cuter when he was in shy mode.

"Oh," He looked down, wondering to himself why he had chosen to wear yellow sneakers that morning. What on earth had possessed him to buy them in the first place? They didn't match with anything and they were really funny looking. Or maybe that was why he got them. Because they were funny looking.

It was than, though, that something incredibly unexpected happened. Kairi grabbed his hands from his side, pulled him gently against her and outright hugged him. He couldn't speak, all he was capable of doing was blinking a few times and wondering if he had imagined the entire thing.

"So, I thought I would say… I really liked you holding me yesterday before that damn pizza guy came… and you looked so handsome just now, all shy and looking down, I really couldn't stop myself, so…" She said to Sora, her voice just above a whisper. He wondered vaguely if she had been possessed by some kind of demon spirit from a fantasy movie. One that felt like playing a cruel trick on him.

"Don't worry about it," She could hear the smile on his voice.

She took her head off his shoulder, where it had been resting a moment ago and leaned back just a little. His eyes met hers, looking sad as she pulled away. But than, she leaned forward and placed her lips on his.

It was almost as if his mind went completely blank. He was unsure of even his own name, but there was one thing, the light of his memories, her. All he knew was her, and all he felt was her as her lips moved against his. He was sure he would die if the moment were to end.

It did end though, she pulled away slowly and blushed ten shades of red. He did not die, as he thought he would, but he longed for the experience again. She looked as unable to speak as he felt. She leaned against him and put her head back on his shoulder as if taking a moment to gather her thoughts. He wondered if they were as scattered as his. He wondered if that was even feasible.

"I like you too, probably more than you like me," She told him quietly. He heard her clearly though, the house was silent.

"Seriously," he couldn't help himself.

"Yeah, seriously," She said. She smiled, even his reaction to her words was absolutely adorable.

"So where does that put us?" He asked the only clear question that was able to form, worrying a little about the answer.

"Still best friends I think," She told him. This had, of course, been one of the things floating through her mind lately, but she was sure, than no matter what Sora would always be one of her two best friends.

"Best friends with benefits?"

"You are way dumber than you look," She started, "I think, if it's ok, boyfriend and girlfriend, who are also best friends," The last part was half question half statement. Though she was pretty sure he would be ok with that arrangement.

"Couldn't have it any other way," He said. She smiled brightly and pulled away from him briefly.

"On the couch," She said. As much as Sora wanted to say 'you aren't going to have your way with me are you' he didn't. It would destroy the moment, he was sure. Though Riku would be very disappointed in him not seizing such a moment.

Obliging, he sat down, and nudged for her to follow, she sat on his lap, and wrapped her arms around his neck loosely.

"This is so nice," She commented spicily.

"Absolutely brilliant,"

"You've been watching too much Harry Potter," Kairi said.

"I like the word brilliant," he laughed quietly. She shrugged, than leaned closer to him. He smelled nice, she commented in her mind. A strange thought for a girl like her to have, but it was an observation that she particularly enjoyed.

"Kairi" Came a whisper just above her ear.

"Yes Sora?"

"How are you?" It seemed to Kairi that he had wanted to say something else but had changed his mind at the last minute.

"Fine, thank you, how are you,"

"Good," He said.

"Future English major should know it's 'well'" Kairi laughed a little. Sora just sighed.

"I think my mind died,"

"That's ok, I still like you," She replied to his comment.

"Kairi,"

"Yes Sora?"

"Can um…" He was obviously having trouble saying what he wanted to say. Perhaps an effect of his mind being shut down.

Kairi though, was somehow able to read his, perhaps empty, mind. So she asked it for him, "Sora, can we kiss again?" She asked. He looked at her a little surprised.

"I was just going to…"

"Haha, sure you were," She said, their lips soon met again.

She was unsure how much time passed by. It may have been a long time, but she could not tell, between the soft kisses the two shared and the cuddling, her time perception was thrown off.

But she did hear the key turn in the lock, signaling that her mother had arrived home from work. More than likely with Ariel, who had a club after school, which required her mother to pick her up.

Sora looked to the door at the noise and than to Kairi. She begrudgingly got off of his lap, so as to not have to answer as many questions to her mother who would definitely notice if the two were outright cuddling each other. Sora smiled, though his eyes revealed a longing to hold her again.

He looked particularly sweet now, with his hair slightly disheveled, Kairi's doing. She laughed and pointed to it silently, he understood and ran a hand through his brown locks, not doing too much to improve it, but just enough for them to be unnoticed.

"Kairi," Her mother called after she heard the quick footsteps of her younger sister running towards the living room, and the TV.

"In here mom," Kairi called, her mother walked into the room, looking exhausted after a day at work.

"Hello Sora," Kairi's mom said, upon seeing the boy also seated on the couch. "Doing homework I hope?" Her mother asked.

"Something like that," He told her, grinning a little and inconspicuously side glancing at Kairi, who pretended not to notice.

"Oh," Kairi's mom said after Sora spoke. It was very obvious that all homework had been abandoned in a tattered school bag lying somewhere around the house, "are you staying for dinner?"

"Sure," Sora said, holding back the huge grin that wanted to spread across his face.

"Ok," Kairi's mom said, she than headed into the kitchen to start cooking.

"Kairi, where's the TV control," A complaining voice droned. It was, of course, coming from Ariel. For some reason or another, children around her sister's age were absolutely in love with the TV. They had to be in control of it of course, lest they miss their favorite Disney Channel movie. That would be disastrous.

Kairi pointed to the coffee table in front of the TV. The most blatantly obvious spot had eluded her younger sister.

"Sora, why are you staring at my sister?" Ariel asked in a childish voice. Sora's eyes widened.

"Well… ummm, she looks like this video game character that I know… you know, so I had to compare for a minute and… nothing important or anything,"

"Sora and Kairi sitting in a tree K-I –S," Kairi reached her sister and quickly put her hand over her mouth and grabbed the TV control from her hand.

"Do you know what a ransom is?" She asked, removing her hand from her sister's mouth.

"Yes, it's when the bad guy asks for the money from the good guy so they can get something the bad guy kidnapped," Ariel said, Kairi could not follow half of what she said, but she was glad her sister had a general idea of the concept.

"See the TV control… it's kidnapped, and to get it back you have to stop picking on Sora and me," She told her sister, who was eyeing the TV control with round eyes.

"Ok," Ariel said, her voice cracking as she reached for the TV control.

"Promise,"

"I promise," She said.

"Ok," Kairi nodded and gave her back the TV control. She smiled and turned on the TV with delight.

"We're going upstairs," Kairi mentioned to her sister.

"No, you're not," Kairi's mother called from the other room.

"Why not?" Kairi questioned.

"Come and help me with dinner," Her mother ordered.

"Fine," She wanted more alone time with Sora. But she walked into the kitchen, Sora was not too far behind.

"Cut the carrots," Her mother instructed, leaving Sora standing at the counter with nothing to do.

"What can Sora do?" Kairi asked her mom.

"Nothing dear,"

"Why not," She asked.

"Remember the last time we let him help?" Her mother asked. Though it would seem originally like Kairi's mother was only being polite in not assigning the guest chores, she was in fact just sparing the kitchen of extra mess. Sora wasn't really a guest in her eyes as he ate over several times a week.

She knew the boy's parents worked very awkward hours, and did not come home to cook for him very often, and since he had been around twelve, he had been cooking dinner for himself more times than not, poor boy probably messed up his own kitchen just like he did hers every time. It was not fun to clean up.

She of course, was perplexed as to why people who were so financially comfortable would need to work such insane hours. But, though she would never say it aloud, it always seemed as if they enjoyed the comfort of their office more than the comfort of their homes. Or their son's company.

"Sorry about that…" He said and looked at the counter to avoid eye contact. Kairi looked at him, more fondly than usual and laughed.

"So what did you two do when you weren't doing homework," Kairi's mother asked.

"You know Thriller?" Kairi asked her mom.

"Yes," She wondered what strange story her daughter was about to tell.

"Well, we did that dance over and over until we passed out from exhaustion on the living room couch," Kairi said with a completely strait face.

"So that's why you two look so, messed up," Her mother pointed out, "But I'm perplexed as to why you would do thriller in dress," Kairi's eyes widened as she looked down at the dress that Sora had asked her to wear.

"It makes life more interesting," Kairi said, "Like in that movie, where they dance to the song… that girl wears a dress, maybe," Sora stared at her pathetic attempt to cover up. Kairi's mother shrugged and continued to mix something together in a large bowl.

Of course she would ask more question's later. That was unavoidable. She almost felt bad for her daughter as she remembered her teenage years. Almost.

A/n Ok this chapter is so long. It's in the six thousand range for words. So congratulations if you read the whole thing… you just read more than six thousand words. You should be proud. I would be. I'm actually quite proud of typing such a long chapter. I haven't had one this long for a while. Wow.

Please forgive the utter corniness of this chapter. I don't know why I write fluff. I'm no good at it. But I just love it so much, it's kinda impossible to stop writing it. It's also difficult to stop reading it, I discovered at a young age. Well not too young. Young ish.

I think my favorite part was the school girl thing with Riku. Yeah, it made me laugh. It was a little silly, and obviously just a joke between friends, but yeah. So funny. It's bad to like your own jokes though isn't it. This a/n is turning into a rant. That's bad, an a/n is supposed to be the place where one intelligently and with (out) dignity begs for reviews.

So here I go. Review please. You know you want a nonexistent cookie. They taste so good, in your imagination.

Oh yeah also, sorry about not updating for a long time. I've been studying and intelligent stuff like that so I had a lot on my plate. Not that it really matters to anyone. But review telling me what you thought of the fluff, your favorite part, and of course to inform me of my many grammatical errors.


	9. Eskimoland

Riku: Nexlei does not own Kingdom Hearts or any other random references

Me: I'm in shock that I updated. Enjoy the chapter

Chapter Nine

Eskimoland

The automatic lights, cleverly positioned outside the house, switched off. He had been sitting motionless for ten minutes. If there was one thing that screamed suburbia, it was the motion sensitive lights. Convenient, until the local wildlife activated them at three in the morning. Sora had the advantage of a room that had perfectly angled windows, just the right angle for his neighbor's phosphorescent solar powered light to hit him right in the eyes. This was a frequent occurrence as he often forgot to close the shades.

But his neighbors were not the only ones guilty of this suburban pleasure. His house had them too. They had just switched off, telling him that he had been sitting in his car for ten whole minutes. The sudden lack of light had forced him to divert his vision from whatever it was that he had been staring at, when one was in deep thought they tended to stare unknowingly at some poor, unsuspecting object.

Smiling stupidly to himself, he grabbed his old school bag, got out of his car, and walked briskly to the front door. Not even thoughts of his chemistry homework could wipe the smile off of his face. This was quite an impressive feat as he was sure he didn't understand a single word, or symbol he should say, of said homework.

Grabbing his key from his pocket, he opened the front door and walked into his house. The air conditioning was on full blast and he had to stop himself from shivering. His eyebrows arched in confusion, wondering who had turned on the central cooling.

He may have lived in a tropical climate, but it was late into fall now and air conditioning was not needed. The heat didn't bother him anyway as he had coexisted with it for his whole life. The entire house felt like his parents room, which was always kept at subzero temperatures.

Laughing to himself as he attempted to see his breath in the air, and frowning when he failed, he walked into the living room, fully expecting to see nothing but that comfy couch and that lovely thousand channeled TV. He was surprised.

Sora's mother, in the flesh, was sitting on _his_ couch.

"Mom?" he questioned, surprised to see her home, not asleep, and most of all _sitting on his couch_. She looked up sharply, furrowed her eyebrows and squinted at him. He wondered if she was having some trouble recognizing him and inwardly rolled his eyes.

"Sora why are you back so late, where have you been?" She shot out quickly. He was taken aback by the sudden question.

"The usual, drugs, sex, and rock n' roll,"

"What," She half-whispered, half-chocked. Sora mentally kicked himself, his good mood had let sarcasm slip out on his mother. This was not something one did with his mother. Heaven knows, she had taken it better then he expected.

"Only kidding, I was at Kairi's," He told her. She nodded her head stiffly before proceeding to regard him like a convict.

"And how is she?" His mother asked dryly, and looked up at the ceiling, finally breaking her scrutiny of her would-be druggy son.

"Good," He told her, his smile widening.

"Why are you smiling so much," His mother asked suspicion rising. Looking at her, he shrugged, and when she narrowed her eyes, he felt compelled to give a more articulate answer.

"Had a good day is all," He told her nodding his head as if to emphasize the point.

"I see…"  
"Mom, I'm not trying to be rude or anything, but, why are you in here sitting on m… the couch , usually you're asleep, or at work now," He had to stop himself from calling it his couch. This was the first time he had even seen her sitting on the leather piece of heaven, and something about it did not look right.

"I'm not allowed to sit on the couch that I paid for? And ask my son about his day," His mother raised her eyebrows as if in a challenge. He would not meet it though; he had had too good a day to get his mother angry at him.

"I'm sorry," He said. She shook her head.

"What is going on between you and your friend," Sora got the meaning but decided to feign misunderstanding.

"Which friend,"

"The girl," His mother shot back as if it were obvious. Sora flinched and bit his lip as he prepared to lie right through his boyish smile.

"Well, we are best friends if that's what you mean, no change there since before preschool," He told her.

"Yes, well, coming home so late from her house on a school night," His mother said.

"It's only nine," He pointed out.

"Only?"

"I stayed over for dinner and than we watched a movie," He told her.

"Oh?" It was said like a question.

"Yeah, she made me watch _The Sound Of Music_, again" not that he had minded. Ariel and her mother had retreated upstairs to do… something, he couldn't remember. Homework perhaps. He and Kairi had cuddled.

"Really,"

"Yeah," Sora said, and than diverting his attention to the electric thermometer on the wall, his eyes widening at the low number, "Mom, can I turn off the air conditioning, please,"

"No, it's hot in here," She said. He wanted to make a ridiculous gesture at the thermometer, but didn't. He nodded instead. She looked back at him and motioned for him to come closer.

"Hmmm?"

"Your lips, when did you start wearing lip gloss?" Touché.

"Huh," His hands flew to his lips, as if to hide, "Oh, heh, right you know chap stick… It sure is cold in here…"

"Did you do your homework?" She asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah" He didn't really lie, he had gotten through a few math problems in class. So technically he did his homework. Just not all of it. "Well I'm going to bed," He suggested as the idea of homework returned to his mind. Eagar to get upstairs and to his room, where there was a small space heater that could neutralize the effects of the air conditioning, he left his mother after a quick "goodnight",

Climbing up the stairs at a relatively fast pace, and nearly slipping as his socks made contact with the hard wood floors, he made it to his room. The small heater was calling to him, along with a barley used sweatshirt. He wondered briefly if his mother had any Eskimo blood in her.

It was unusual on the whole that she had been down there, sitting on the couch, not working, sleeping, or doing anything particularly productive other then asking her one and only son about his day. He blinked twice, as he flicked the heater on. He then shook his head and realized that he had more important thoughts at the moment then his mother's sudden inhabitation of the living room.

It was difficult for him to pull out his old school books, and to concentrate on the tasks at hand when his mind was being invaded with the memories of earlier that day. Him and Kairi.

After an hour of grueling work, he put his books back in his bag and collapsed onto his bed in a heap. He pulled out his cell phone, and dialed a number speedily, putting the phone to his ear and listening to the rings.

It was a lovely evening, he had it all planned out. The flowers, the candy, the movie tickets, how on earth could you go wrong with flowers candy and movie tickets? How? Riku tapped the steering wheel impatiently, as he approached a red light. A very disenchanted brunette was sitting next to him, trying her hardest to look disinterested.

Riku almost sighed, how on earth was he supposed to know that her ex boyfriend would be seeing the same movie as them? How on earth was he supposed to know that her ex boyfriend was about a foot shorter than him? How was he supposed to know that aforementioned midget would try to pick a fight? Honestly it was only a date. Riku just didn't understand it.

"God, it's like we've hit every single red light," The brunette beside him squealed. He shrugged his shoulders calmly. The girl had turned unnecessarily sour after the encounter with her ex, who had tried to shove Riku into the popcorn machine. Through the whole thing, Riku didn't budge a single inch. He swore it would have made a great internet video had the girl not gotten so upset.

When the tears had stopped, she insisted that she be driven home immediately, and who was he to not comply? He had dated a lot of girls yes, but he certainly wasn't mean to them.

After an eternity, the light turned green and they were on their way again. With the exception of a few stop signs, they didn't stop until they reached her house.

They got out of the car together, and stood for a moment.

"Well thanks," She said blatantly, and turned around, walking inside, without so much as a 'thanks for-defending-me-from-that-short-old-creeper' kiss. Go figure.

Feeling disappointment settle in, he walked back to his car and wondered why exactly he had decided to take out a girl on a school night. He had a six A.M. wakeup to look forward to the following morning.

It was not until he had reached his house that he heard his cell phone ring. His ring tone, unlike most teens, was a simple preprogrammed bit. It had come with the cell phone and it sounded like a phone, not a muffled ipod on full blast. Not downloading a ringtone was a dollar well saved. In his mind, the ice cream cone that extra dollar had paid for was much better spent.

"Hello," He answered, tired, and generally in too bad of a mood to come up with a witty phone pick up.

"Riku?" The voice on the other line questioned, as if they didn't recognize his voice, or had not just dialed his number.

"Yeah," He replied, cradling the phone between his shoulder and ear, as he reached down to unlock his door.

"It's Sora," Came the reply. Riku was too tired to analyze the fact that his friend had announced himself, when he quite obviously knew who was calling from the sound of his voice.

"Are you sure?" He was however not completely beyond making a sarcastic comment.

"Riku…" Sora trailed off on the phone, leaving Riku unsure whether he was incredibly happy, sad, or confused by his chemistry homework.

"What page are you on Sora?" He asked his friend, as he walked into his house and kicked the door closed in a very haphazard manner.

"What?" His friend questioned.

"What page, you know in the chemistry book," Riku repeated.

"But we weren't even talking about chemistry…"

"Right…" Riku said, shaking his head as he climbed up his stairs.

"So… I…" Sora trailed off. Riku blinked a few times, and walked into his room, before collapsing onto his soft bed in exhaustion.

"Sora?" Riku asked as his friend proceeded to allow silence to settle between them, a beep came from the phone, announcing a call on the other line.

"What was that?" The boy was eager to change the subject, or lack there of.

"Call on the other line," He pulled the phone from his ear and glanced at the screen, "Do you mind if I take it?"

"Sure," Sora said. Riku nodded, although his friend could not see him. He pushed the button, connecting him to the second caller.

"Hey Kairi," He said calmly.

"Riku," She seemed just as surprised to be talking to him as Sora had.

"Imagine that," He laughed.

"Right, so ummm I have something to tell you,"

"A secret?" Riku's eyes perked up.

"No, not really… I mean…" closing his eyes, he matched up something.

"Ohhhhhhh," He said into the receiver. It had all come together for him. Sora calling him. Kairi calling him. Both at a loss of words. Yes, one plus one did indeed equal two. Two plus one equals three, three plus two equals five and five plus three equals eight, and five plus eight equals thirteen. Together you get the Fibonacci sequence. Therefore, something must have changed in Sora and Kairi's relationship. There was no doubting Riku's pure mathematical genius, "Could you hold on, I have someone on the other line,"

"Sure…" Kairi trailed off.

"Sora," Riku spoke into his phone, a new energy in his previously dull voice, "You and Kairi eh?" He almost laughed to himself.

"Whaaa… how did you know? Did Kairi tell you?" Sora seemed shocked.

"Naw, I guessed, but fascinating anyhow," Riku smirked, although Sora couldn't see the smirk, it wasn't difficult to guess it.

"Kairi's on the other line isn't she?" Sora sighed.

"Where'd you get that idea?" Riku asked his friend.

"Who else would be calling you Riku?"

"You're really asking?"

"Oh right, how was that brunette… are you still out with her?"

"Nope, I'll tell you later… I don't want to make Kairi wait forever"

"But you just said…" Riku switched lines before Sora could tell him something he already knew.

"Sorry I took so long," Riku spoke.

"That's Sora isn't it?" Kairi asked.

"You two…"

"What?"

"No, nothing… so you and Sora right,"

"Riku," She was blushing, he could tell.

"Hmmm. It's true isn't it?" Riku asked.

"Yeah," Kairi said, "That's what I called to tell you… I guess,"

"Thanks for the info, so… do you find it funny that you and Sora decided to call me at the same time, to tell me the same thing?" Riku asked, he was grinning though, suddenly very happy for his two best friends.

"Heh, Really?"

"Yeah, must be a match made in heaven,"

"Aw thanks…" Kairi said.

"Well, I better get back to Sora before he goes crazy… I'll talk to you tomorrow at school?"

"Ok Riku," Kairi said, "Goodnight," She hung up and the line switched back to Sora.

"Really Riku… you could have let me finish my sentence," Sora sighed into the receiver.

"Right, right, right," Riku sighed, "So exactly how did this come to be…?"

"Oh right… ummm so she hugged me I guess and…" Sora started, trailing off at the end… Riku of course could not let such a moment slip,"

"And dot, dot, dot," He laughed to himself.

"Riku did you see Mama Mia?" Only reply that Sora could think of.

"You didn't deny the dot, dot, dot,"

"No Riku, none of that," It was sometimes better to be blunt with Riku, even if he had to blush in the process.

"Hmmm,"

"Really Riku," Sora insisted.

"So this is that magical third wheel feeling, not as bad as I thought," Riku said, ignoring his friend's comment.

"Hey… I mean, it's not like you didn't just have a date?" Sora added.

"Yeah,"

"And how was that?" Sora asked.

"Her ex boyfriend showed up,"

"Ouch,"

"Pretty much," Riku said, "He was short though, couldn't push me into the popcorn machine," Riku said, thinking back on the whole ordeal made him tired, and even a little stressed. So much for a fun brunette filled, fun, evening of fun,"

"Right," Sora said.

"So you're not going to rant about Kairi?" Riku questioned.

"Haha, I came home today, and my mom was home and…"

"Your mom was home?"

"Yes, and she was kind enough to point out the lip gloss that I'm wearing,"

"Oh boy," Riku laughed.

"Pretty much,"

"You'll learn to wipe that off eventually,"

"I can only hope…" Sora said, "I still have homework,"

"Get on it, I need sleep,"

"Ok Goodnight,"

"Goodnight," Riku hung up, lazily tossing his phone onto the floor and closing his eyes. He had neglected to take off his shoes, as he would discover at approximately three in the morning, when he struggled to kick them off in a half asleep trance, before falling back to sleep.

a/n I updated. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please review.


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